


Cogito Ergo Sum

by bluebeholder



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: (The Whales Are Important), Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Artificial Intelligence, Corporate Espionage, Gratuitous Philosophy, M/M, Whales, soft science fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-03-09 17:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 51,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13486134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: “I think therefore I am. / The more we say it the more it sounds like / I think therefore I will be.”—Neil Hilborn, “This is Not the End of the World”Into a world of corporate espionage and out-of-control technological advancement steps Corvo Attano. Having escaped from prison and on the run from accusations of the murder of his lover and employer Jessamine Kaldwin, he seeks to find his missing daughter Emily. Opposed by the ruling singularity OVERSEER, surrounded by untrustworthy allies, and alone against the face of overwhelming force, Corvo has only one ally. The Outsider, the ghost in the machine, offers him powers beyond human imagining. Corvo doesn't know what the price is, nor does he care.He has exactly one goal: destroy the men who killed Jessamine and took Emily.And if that means allowing the world to burn...he's happy to do it.





	1. Chapter 1

start  
[ERROR_GEN_FAILURE]

start

run overseer.exe

search corvo_attano.gff

open corvo_attano.gff  
[ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED]

[ERROR_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED]

start

run overseer.exe

search corvo_attano.gff  
[ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, all!!! Welcome to the first REAL installment of what I have affectionately come to call “The Cyberpunk Hellscape.” (The alternate title for this is “whalesong.txt”. Be glad that one was knocked out of the running.)
> 
> I’ve been working on this thing for upwards of a month. Out-of-season NaNoWriMo? More likely than you think! This was particularly inspired by some BEAUTIFUL art by wehavekookies: the augmented Outsider and augmented Corvo. 
> 
> And just for posterity’s sake: this damn fic, too, was _supposed to be under 5,000 words_. I should never, ever, EVER say that. It always ends in a damn epic. This fic will run to a little more than 50,000 words over the course of the next nine weeks or so. It’s COMPLETE as of this note, so come hell, high water, or nuclear winter, I WILL be posting. Chapters three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, Saturday.  
>  There are some things that are definite triggers in later chapters as well as smut; warnings will appear in relevant chapters. Most of this fic is not smut. It’s Corvo having an adventure. :3
> 
> A couple miscellaneous notes. Because she asked me to remind you all: my beta reader’s favorite character was Samuel. You should definitely read the poem quoted in the epigraph…might just give you some hints about things going on before the bombshells start dropping. This fic follows, in large part, the path of Dishonored 1, but due to some…other circumstances that you’ll see later…Corvo and Emily have both been written at their ages in Dishonored 2. 
> 
> HUGE thank-you to Kooks for permitting me to take inspiration from her art, [Avaesta](%E2%80%9C) for all her help with the ins and outs of programming and backwards-compatible architecture, and the rest of the Kinksamers for cheering me on as I hauled myself toward the finish line. You’re all amazing. <3 
> 
> A special thanks to my beta reader Pyxyl, my little sister. She took on the challenge of me (again) calling her in a panic screaming about wanting to start posting on Saturday and is there a _chance_ she could beta 50,000 words of fic in one day? She did, and the result is before you. 
> 
> Finally…I literally wouldn’t have done this without the endless support and love from adrift_me. When this thing broke 10,000 words and I blew into a panic, I got support. When I crashed out and almost deleted my AO3 account, she talked me down. She encouraged me as I turned tomato red writing smut. Sent me whale photos and made me a Pinterest board. _Drew me actual physical art_. A voice in the Void, inspiring and encouraging. Thank you so much.  <3<3<3
> 
> And without further ado…let’s get this show on the road!

Dunwall is a city on the brink of collapse. Rioters march for better working conditions only to be blown aside by policemen who will later join the ranks of rioters. Wetworkers serve illegally for anyone who will pay and legal murder happens every day against criminals. Corporations vie for control of markets and resources, savaging one another in an endless warfare that’s worse than the writhing chemically-mutated hagfish and worse that infest the Wrenhaven River and even the sea. In the streets Dunwall’s citizens hide their faces behind fashions to fool face recognition and drown out the implosion of the city with music and entertainment of every sort.

And, presiding as master of ceremonies, OVERSEER, the panopticon, the singularity, watching from every camera, every operating system in every augmentation everywhere. On its orders, dragnets bring back the data of citizens. On its orders, criminals—better known as those who violate its rules—are thrown into prison and forgotten. No one escapes from the primary containment facility of Coldridge Prison, the monster of the law that looms over the southern end of the city.

By some miracle, Corvo Attano breaks out. Wrongfully convicted of the murder of his employer, he’s been in there for six infinite months. He staggers out missing his left arm, carrying a nervous system blanketed in all the connection points they used to break into his mind and ‘upgrade’ it, and wearing a body violently augmented through surgeries he doesn’t remember. He’s not sure how he survived with his sanity intact, but he did. He’s alive. And that’s all that counts.

He isn’t sure how he got out of the prison to begin with. Between the muscle twitches induced by six months of TENS exposure and the missing arm, he should never have made it more than a foot out of his cell. OVERSEER should have seen him. He should have been caught a hundred times over. He’d taken a chance on a message that had come to him out of the blue, promising help and protection if he could manage to get out of the prison. Corvo didn’t expect to succeed. But he’d stumbled on keys to open the right doors, power outages had taken out halls full of alarms and sensors before he entered them, and security cameras turned away at the precise moment he needed to pass them. It was as though an unseen entity was guiding him through the safest, easiest path out.

An old man named Samuel, a broke taxi driver whose battered car still swishes through the flooded streets on bald tires, is waiting to carry Corvo to safety. When Corvo stumbles out of the ancient and unwatched subway tunnel, bleeding from rat bites and shaking with fatigue, his first instinct is to panic: his second is to nearly die of relief. Samuel is with the people who’d promised to help Corvo, and even if Corvo doesn’t trust these people as far as he can throw them, he’ll take what he can get. Nothing can be worse than what he just walked out of.

Samuel has no augments: he’s safe from the invasive eyes of OVERSEER. He wraps Corvo in a blanket and gets him in a car with darkened windows and drives off through the neon streets. They hurtle unseen under security cameras and flaring advertisements all the way through Dunwall to the Hound’s Pits Pub, in the middle of the Blackout District.

This is the District from hell. It’s been quarantined because of the Weeper virus since before Corvo went into Coldridge. The virus is a rat, a horror that corrupts connections between the host and OVERSEER. If left unchecked—and so far it has been, because every attempt to fight back has resulted in worse damage—the host will eventually lose all use of augments. In most cases, the virus will kill the host as the augmentations go haywire and the virus eats away at the internal programs installed in the brain. In the interest of protecting the rest of society, OVERSEER cut off the entire District.

The firewall that OVERSEER set up is supposed to be impenetrable. Entering here safely requires doing what has already been done to Corvo: disconnecting him from everything, preventing him from coming in contact with anything at all. That, to most, is unthinkable. The loneliness in a brain that isn’t connected is said to be unbearable. People who live in this District are risking their lives to stay connected to each other and every day the Weeper spreads further.  

Corvo, cut off from the entire rest of the world, will never contract the virus. Still, anyone knows he’ll go insane from the mental solitude. Corvo disagrees. He survived six months of solitude in Coldridge.

He can survive a few more.

At the pub, Samuel delivers Corvo into the waiting arms of the men who call themselves the Loyalists. They are Treavor Pendleton—of the Pendleton mining enterprises that run out of the hills north of Dunwall—and Farley Havelock—owner of the Havelock shipping fleet. They are onetime business allies of Jessamine Kaldwin, for whose murder Corvo had been framed, and they are interested in finding her daughter and heir Emily Kaldwin and putting her in her rightful place at the helm. Both men stand to gain significantly from this conspiracy. Treavor Pendleton has shares in Kaldwin Enterprises and a promise from Jessamine to help put him in charge of his family’s company. Havelock Shipping, so Farley informs Corvo, is threatened by the expansion of Kaldwin Enterprises under the new leadership of Hiram Burrows.

“It was Burrows who had Jessamine killed,” Pendleton says, “and Thaddeus Campbell, the lead man for OVERSEER’s Dunwall server hub, helped him.”

Jessamine. Corvo had been her lover and her bodyguard, the father of her daughter Emily, and he was the one who could not prevent her murder. He was cut adrift, left helpless. And now he has the name of the killer. No, two names: two guilty men, who created their own demise. They were the ones who disconnected him, who made him invisible in the eyes of OVERSEER, who made it so that he can go utterly unseen. Corvo agrees to the Loyalists’ demands before they can even make them, so long as he can find his daughter and avenge Jessamine’s death. They want Emily back because she’s legal owner of Kaldwin Enterprises. Corvo wants Emily back because she’s his daughter.

The Loyalists have the relatively renowned augment maker Piero Joplin in their employ, and they hand Corvo off to be repaired. As Piero works on him in the operating garage with its flickering fluorescent lights—attaching his new arm, repairing the nerve damage, uninstalling unwanted software, scanning for lurking threats—Corvo takes stock of himself. He feels battered and bruised beyond repair. His voice is gone, wrenched from him by some medical procedure of which he has only hazy memories, leaving him silent with a scar running vertically up his throat. Now he has to interface with computers and communicate by instant messages, instead of with a physical voice. It doesn’t bother him much: he’s always been a quiet man by his own nature. His basic physical structure is intact, and with a day or two of rest he’ll be fully functional again.

He wonders briefly, as Havelock and Pendleton instruct him in his purpose and mission, if his lack of a voice is the reason these men chose to save him from Coldridge. A man of skill without a voice to protest? Why not? He’s a perfect servant of their cause. Still, Corvo thinks as Piero begins to calibrate Corvo’s new augmented arm, it doesn’t matter. At least he’s out. He’ll have a chance to save Emily, and that’s what counts. The rest can wait.

The arm is old in style, nothing like the sleeker stuff in fashion now. There’s no plating, no hiding the servos, the joints and wires. It’s the same gray as the barrel of his gun, with a sigil embossed in black on the back of his hand. Corvo looks at Piero and raises the hand, curious. “The old system’s mark,” Piero explains. “Nothing like the intelligences we use today. It’s just the architecture to put sensation in your hand and make it responsive to you, no need for anything grand. We’ve used a different operating system. OVERSEER can’t touch it.”

As Piero goes on, explaining how the connections OVERSEER’s servants had implanted in him will be used for future augments, Corvo absently strokes the sigil on the back of his hand. There’s a certain comfort in it, though he can’t say why.

 

***

 

When they finish installing his augmentations, Corvo is allowed to meet the rest of the conspirators. There aren’t many. Callista Curnow, formerly a secretary in Kaldwin Enterprises and now laid off, is the only other physical; the others are virtual intelligences.

There’s Lydia, hostess and oldest intelligence, who has a certain programmed vivaciousness that seems a little false to Corvo. Cecelia is the youngest, and manages the mundane chores that keep the pub running despite the fact that she’s the most advanced. Wallace is the most expensive, purchased and brought in as a clean copy by Pendleton. He runs the security systems and it seems that he and the others don’t get along.

Although the other physical Loyalists can obviously interact with the intelligences by the screens around them, and wear the spectacles that allow them to see the intelligences moving, Corvo realizes quickly that somewhere along the line his optics must have been augmented. He can see them without glasses, and they’re realer and firmer than any intelligences he’s ever seen with glasses. He can’t help but marvel at it, admiring them all, and the intelligences pick up on it by sensor contact. They warm up quickly, and suddenly Corvo feels a little less alone.

He’s walking a strange line between the physical and the virtual, existing in both and neither at once. It’s _bizarre_. Until Coldridge, he had no augmentations except the standard sort that anyone in the modern world had, connections to communication and information flow and so on. But now he’s cut off, his new OS tailored to automatically connect only with the Hounds Pits LAN. It’s disconnected from the singularity and safe for the conspiracy, by virtue of being a local area network in the Blackout District. If the connections go back online, then that security could vanish very quickly. For now, the Weeper is providing as much security as it is danger. A strange standoff.

And that leaves Corvo very, very alone. The Loyalists don’t connect. They isolate when they come into the Blackout District, which makes them unwilling to stay long. Even Piero, living in his workshop, isn’t fully connected to the network.

This isolation, as frightening as it is, will save Corvo’s life. To OVERSEER, he’s a blind spot, something it can’t pick up in the virtual world. It will be an advantage as he sets off in the quest for Emily. The uncomfortable solitude of his mind is a small price to pay for her safety.

Still, Corvo isn’t sure he’s truly alone. His neck prickles constantly, as if he’s being watched despite the fact that he can’t possibly be under the eyes of OVERSEER. He tries to put it aside, but he can’t, quite.

Even if he’s augmented beyond all reason now, he still has to sleep. They give him a room of his own with a door that locks and will respond only to his digital signature. He strips off his clothes and crashes into the bed, closing his eyes. It’s strange, not to have to power off his connections to the ocean of data that churns through Dunwall, but somehow relaxing. And like this, he begins to drift into sleep.

“Hello, Corvo.”

Corvo sits bolt upright in bed, already reaching for a weapon, when he sees the slim figure standing at the foot of his bed. He’s a young man, dressed casually in leather and combat boots. He’s pale, thin; a fringe of black hair brushes over his forehead. He could be any young man who walked in right off the street. The only thing that gives him away is the flicker of his eyes from green to solid black and back again: the signal that Corvo’s talking, not to a physical being, but to an intelligence. Anyone else in the room wouldn’t see him. And—right, he’s also floating. Not even a pretense of physical interaction.

The young man is utterly expressionless as he speaks. “Your life has taken a turn, has it not? The empress of Kaldwin Enterprises is dead at the hands of her enemies, her corporate holdings have been bought by her own lieutenant Burrows, OVERSEER owns the city through its slave Campbell, and your daughter Emily is lost somewhere in this city. And here you are, a blind spot in the great singularity, at a pivotal moment to change everything.”

 _Who are you?_ Corvo asks.

“I am the Outsider,” the young man says. He flickers and appears beside Corvo. One finger strokes the mark on the back of Corvo’s new hand. “This is my Mark. I am your operating system, your intelligence. This is my gift to you: access to forces beyond the singularity, great forces that will serve your will, forces that OVERSEER fears.”

Corvo looks up at him. The light’s strange, and Corvo suddenly wonders if he’s in the physical world at all. Is this a dream? Access to the virtual in sleep is unheard-of for physicals. Intelligences don’t dream, and with all his implants and augmentations…Corvo may as well be an intelligence. _What do you want from me?_

The Outsider shrugs minutely. “Nothing. I am merely your intelligence. In the days that follow, you will face great trials. I can offer you augmentations, bearing my mark; you will find these elsewhere in the world. When you take them on you will have power beyond those any other man possesses.” He reaches down and presses a hand to Corvo’s bare chest. There’s no real touch, and the hand clips through his skin, flickers, giving away its virtual nature. “Your heart is programmed with sensors to tell you when secrets are hidden nearby. If you listen to it, you may find what you need.”

 _I don’t hear anything_.

The Outsider draws back, wholly inscrutable as he watches Corvo. “How you use what I have given you falls upon you, as it has to the others before you. And now, I return you to the physical world, but know that I will be watching with great interest.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the first regular Monday update!
> 
> Today, we visit Dunwall properly. A moment that I, personally, have been waiting for. :333

There’s already a mission for him when he wakes up. Pendleton and Havelock inform him of it as Piero runs final system checks in the operating garage. Corvo is to find and eliminate Campbell, and in the process free their ally Teague Martin.

“Martin was instrumental in getting you out of Coldridge,” Pendleton says. “He knows all of Dunwall, and most of OVERSEER’s people. He’s important.”

“And I’m certain that Campbell has access to files that will detail the location of Emily,” Havelock says, watching Piero run a diagnostic on Corvo’s arm.

The artificial voice they’ve given Corvo is all wrong. It doesn’t sound like him: it’s sonorous and pleasant and monotonous, nothing like his own—his _former_ —rough voice. The voice he still hears in his head, that the intelligences hear. But it serves to get the point across: “Martin, Campbell, files, I understand. What about my OS?”

Pendleton’s brow furrows. “What about it?”

“Is there an intelligence installed?”

Piero turns around from the screen, eyeing Corvo. “No,” he says. “I told you. It’s only framework.”

“And my heart?” Corvo persists. He _hates_ this voice, damn it, but he can’t interface with the Loyalists by sensor contact and they don’t like it when he projects messages onto screens. “Is that augmented?”

“There are mechanisms installed, yes,” Piero says. He fidgets, clicking a key absently. “They were put in while you were in Coldridge, to…er…”

“To keep it beating,” Havelock says with surprising gentleness as Piero trails off. “There’s every chance that your heart was replaced entirely, and we have no good way of knowing without technology we can’t get in the Blackout District.”

“It’s a heart,” Pendleton says brusquely. “Not uncommon, you know that. This one probably works better, augmented as it is. Keep you young and healthy.”

As Havelock and Pendleton return to tactical discussion and Piero returns to his diagnostics, Corvo presses his original hand to his chest, feeling the beat there. It’s strong. Regular.

He’s lived in a world of virtual intelligence and mechanized augmentation for his entire life. He’s never had a reason to question it. This is his reality: the virtual and the physical. Augmentation has never seemed anything less than natural, but this…the idea of this, of a heart that doesn’t belong to him, shoved into his chest without his consent…it’s unnatural. It’s not human.

Callista stops him before he can even get ready to go. “I have a favor to ask,” she says, twisting her fingers in the hem of her shirt. “My uncle. Geoff Curnow. He’s an officer on the security team and I think he’s in trouble. Campbell is rooting out traitors and people he doesn’t like. Could you look in on him, warn him to get out?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Corvo’s replacement voice promises. He squeezes her shoulder and she gives him a watery smile before letting him depart.

In the operating garage, Corvo dresses properly and arms himself to go hunting for Campbell. He has a sword—folding, easily hidden—and a pistol, as far as weapons go. There’s the standard sort of combat fatigues he’s used to: heavy boots, knee and elbow pads, gloves, body armor. A long, waterproof leather coat, which is actually his; he’s got no idea how they retrieved it. A hooded jacket to hide his face rounds it all out. He’s ready for any kind of trouble like this.

As the door of the garage rattles open, Piero stops him. “You need to avoid face recognition,” he says. “If OVERSEER spots you, you’re in trouble.”

“Dazzle?” the voice-that-isn’t-Corvo’s asks. That’s street style, standard stuff: wild makeup, concealed eyes, hair sheeting down over the face, strange accessories and high collars and jewelry, hats and hoods, asymmetric styling. Things that fool recognition, that software hasn’t adjusted to be able to see beyond. No one wants to be seen, not when it can bring down an avalanche of attention that no one in the modern age can afford.

Only the wealthy can afford to be seen in public with their faces properly exposed, and that had been Corvo’s life. Rich men go bald, wealthy women wear makeup to draw attention to brows and eyes. They can afford to be recognized—they want to be recognized. In his former life, Corvo had never hidden his face. Unfortunately, that means that his face is logged hundreds of thousands of times in OVERSEER’s databases, impossible not to see.

“No,” Piero says. He holds out a box and pops the lid, revealing a mask of disturbing proportions and aspect. The lines are broken, the nose is missing, the eyes are hidden. Corvo sees it immediately: this thing won’t just fool detection or cause misinterpretation. It won’t even register as a face.

“Where did you get that?”

Piero shuffles a little. “The plans…I woke up with them in my head,” he says. “A stroke of inspiration, I think I left a design program running overnight. It will work. I’ve tested it.”

Corvo takes the mask and holds it up, looking into its empty lensed sockets. The thing looks like a nightmare parody of a skull. And, with a deep breath, he puts it on. He catches a glimpse of himself on a security camera video feed: it’s like looking at a machine instead of a man. He can’t even pretend to recognize himself. With a borrowed heart rattling in his chest, an augmented arm replacing his own, his voice replaced by a computer’s, and a mask hiding his face—the only thing that seems like him anymore is the lonely brain in his skull.

But there’s no time to worry about it.

He turns and pulls up the hood of his coat, stepping out over the threshold of the garage and into the rain-slicked streets.

 

***

 

Campbell is easy to find. He rarely leaves his office at the great silver building where OVERSEER’s heart, a vast and ancient server cluster, is located. Half of OVERSEER, the part that hasn’t made the shift over to cloud computing, is locked into servers that are rumored to date back eighty years or more, to the very beginnings of what had become the technological revolution. Campbell minds these, caring for them, ensuring that their ancient wiring and physical construction continues to support OVERSEER’s increasingly elaborate programming.

Corvo goes on foot. It’s a long journey across the city, but he’s less noticeable if he stays away from speed loggers and traffic counters and watching eyes. Amid Dunwall foot traffic, Corvo’s completely unnoticeable in the crowd. His mask isn’t out of place, nor is the hood: no one gives him a second look in throngs of people in outlandish dazzle gear. He isn’t the only one in the crowds who looks like a machine; there are people with three times as many augments.

The walk is up the Wrenhaven River. No one stops him at the edge of the Blackout District. There are no guards, no gates. The only indication that a pedestrian might accidentally cross the line would be a flash, a warning to whatever device or augmentation they carry that they were nearing the geographic point that OVERSEER had defined as the firewall. Past that point, any system contact carries risk of Weeper infection. Rumor has it, of course, that the virus has broken past the firewall and is now moving through the rest of Dunwall; Corvo can’t speak to the truth of that. Six months cut off from society, and an enforced immunity to the virus, have rather inured him to thinking about that.

The Blackout District isn’t exactly empty—people can’t really afford to leave, when things are as bad as they are—but he notices the second he crosses the no-man’s-land and into the rest of Dunwall. Suddenly there are advertisements everywhere, lights flashing, music blaring, voices booming. “KRC Silvergraph Cameras!” “James & Co. blue powder, guaranteed Dunwall made!” “Travel to Caulkenny and see the Inn on the Rock!” It’s chaos, and the people on the streets and the rain falling to make the streets slick make everything worse.

Luckily, the nearly perpetual storm surging over Dunwall doesn’t hit most of the street. Awnings, skyways, and conjoined buildings through which streets pass provide cover from most of the rain. Still, everything is damp and smells of the ocean salt. With rising seas came retaining walls. It’s not like anyone left Dunwall when the Isles began to drown. Everything is rusting away as fast as it’s repaired: someday, even OVERSEER is going to have to bow to that fate.

As he makes his way through the length of the city, the rain becomes less punishing. The sky, when it’s visible through the overhangs and skyways, has slashes of blue; the clouds are wispy, virga sheeting over the other side of the river. A clear day, a good morning. Even with everything else, Corvo feels somewhat better, seeing the sky even if only for a moment.

He’s nearly to Holger Square now. Corvo almost jumps out of his skin when his heart stutters in his chest. A moment later, there’s a ringing in his ears, a ringing he’s fairly sure only he can hear. A dot of light appears on his vision: this must be what the Outsider meant when he said that compatible parts and software would be noticed by his heart. He turns and follows the path, navigating through the crowd.

In an alley, empty except for rubble, there’s a door. The lock is broken and it opens easily, into a small musty room with cracking concrete walls. Hanging from a nail is a tiny memory chip; over it is painted the same mark that’s on the back of Corvo’s hand. Corvo picks up the chip. A moment later, the Outsider flickers into nonexistence.

“Very good,” he says. “That program will help you slow down time, when it’s installed. Not in the world around you—but your movements will accelerate and have your perception of time stretched so that you have more time to act.”

 _Useful_. Corvo snaps open the collar of his jacket, feeling for the port on his collarbone, and carefully attaches the tiny chip. _You’ll always come and tell me what I’ve picked up, then?_

“I told you,” the Outsider says, “I’m watching you. And just now you need to be careful. There are more dangers in this city than OVERSEER. Some of those dangers are other people like you.”

Corvo looks askance at him as he waits for the new software to install. _More people like me?_

The Outsider inclines his head, just slightly. “Be careful,” he says obscurely, and moves on. “Use those new programs wisely and with good timing. There’s only so much processing power you can give to them, and they can’t all be run at once, or over and over.”

_I know how to conserve resources._

“You wouldn’t have survived as long as you have without that knowledge, no.” The Outsider, if he weren’t utterly expressionless, might be laughing at Corvo. “Go. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t go up Bottle Street.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun story: Dazzle is _real_. As [the CV Dazzle site](https://cvdazzle.com/) explains:
> 
> "The name is derived from a type of World War I naval camouflage called Dazzle, which used cubist-inspired designs to break apart the visual continuity of a battleship and conceal its orientation and size. Likewise, CV Dazzle uses avant-garde hairstyling and makeup designs to break apart the continuity of a face. Since facial-recognition algorithms rely on the identification and spatial relationship of key facial features, like symmetry and tonal contours, one can block detection by creating an “anti-face”."
> 
> Take a look at their look book in order to get an idea of just _what_ the citizens of Dunwall are wearing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sidles in carrying a chapter*
> 
> Okay so this update schedule will take some getting used to. Pardon me while I scream my way through the first few days of it all. BUT HEY: it at least is posting on Wednesday...
> 
> Enjoy!! <3

The offices of OVERSEER’s server hub tower over the interior of the Dunwall skyline. It’s a skyscraper, one of the real titans, a pillar rising out of the city. At night, spotlights flare up from the base to illuminate the marble and steel walls. At this time of day in a light mist with clearing skies, though, the skyscraper seems even more impressive than it does on black rainy nights. It’s a leviathan rising out of the deep fog of Dunwall, like something coming up out of the ocean. Like Dunwall Tower, the lighthouse on Kingsparrow Island, and several other buildings of importance, the offices of OVERSEER’s servants are meant to overawe, to terrify. And they do, generally.

Getting in is shockingly simple. Security systems don’t anticipate someone on foot much anymore. Who would be stupid enough to walk straight into the heart of OVERSEER? No, the system is concerned with attacks from the virtual, not the physical. And Corvo isn’t really here to fight, anyway. He doesn’t plan to kill Campbell. Though Havelock and Pendleton made it clear that they wanted that, without saying it, Corvo understands that killing Campbell will make his work more difficult in the future.

There are Walls of Light everywhere and he doesn’t have a way to break them. Cross the barrier without the right genetic code on file and get disintegrated: Corvo doesn’t like that option much. So he goes around, moving slowly and quietly through the dim halls. There are physical guards, of course, but between stealth and simple knockouts he’s able to avoid them and their guns.

Sometimes, he only has to wait and listen. He braces himself over a doorframe as two guards pace by below, on the end of their shift. “Shall we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight?” one asks, and the other’s reply is indeterminate as they pass.

Neither are any the wiser when Corvo drops down after they pass and continues on his way.

This place is strange and familiar. The walls and floors are sheer and polished, lit above and below with gentle gradient lights in warm, relaxing colors. Ceilings are high; colors muted; surfaces finished. If Corvo isn’t careful, his footsteps echo down the corridors. His shadows pool under his feet in the overhead light, never stretching far. Pleasant music pipes around him, just audible, soothing and calming and ripping at his raw nerves. It’s a dramatic contrast to the crumbling cement walls of most of Dunwall, with their broken faces and exposed rusting rebar.

Once upon a time, halls like these had been his home. He’d been comfortable there. And now it seems…false. He’s seen the Blackout District. He _lives_ there now. He’s seen Coldridge Prison, seen the rat-filled interior, seen the things that OVERSEER’s servants do to those who fall out of line. This beauty, this tower of the future, is built on a drowning island of lies.

Security systems, in a place like this, are relatively easy to avoid. He’s here in the daytime, when most of the motion-sensing equipment is off because it wouldn’t do to have employees setting off the system, and the security cameras are strategically placed but obvious, all the same. Corvo was a security expert for Kaldwin Enterprises, in his former life. After thirty-five years at Jessamine’s side, he knows every trick in the book and, even with speedy technological advancement, not everything changes easily in just six months.

The first objective is Teague Martin. He’s being held in the security wing: it’s an easy matter to set off an alarm three floors away, get down to the security wing, break into his cell, and get him out a back door. It’s up to Martin, now, to make it to the Blackout District intact. He’s not Corvo’s problem anymore, because it’s time for the second—and, to Corvo, most important—objective.

Campbell’s office is up high in the building, requiring some doing to get there. Corvo decides not to take all the stairs. Instead, he breaks open elevator doors when no one is looking, climbs into the shaft, and drops into the elevator from above to take a comfortable ride to the top floor.

The first order of business on this floor is to meet with Geoff Curnow. Corvo can’t exactly let himself be seen, so he waits until he sees Curnow leave his office to slip inside. He writes Callista’s message out physically on a small piece of paper, very expensive, and leaves it folded on Curnow’s desk where he’ll find it immediately. It’s up to Curnow; Corvo can’t actually help him, either.

Now his objective is in sight. It’s down three corridors from the elevators, under vaulted ceilings that make Corvo feel small. The door of Campbell’s office is an open frame into a room with wide windows; for a moment, when he crosses the room, Corvo can only stop and stare. From here he can see the retaining wall and the crashing sea. There are the magnetic train rails over the strait that lead to Serkonos, to Karnaca, the city of Corvo’s birth, the bullet trains firing out across them in flashes of white. The storm clouds roil overhead and for a moment he thinks he sees the shape of one of the huge leviathans drifting through the storm, but then it’s gone, and he’s sure he saw nothing at all.

He takes cover up in a corner, wedging himself in place with augmented strength, and waits. No one ever bothers to look up. It’s not long before Campbell returns, and he never sees Corvo coming. Corvo hits him from behind, slamming him to the floor in a chokehold, and incapacitates the man before slamming one end of an adapter cable into one of Campbell’s connection ports. The other end is connected to an external hard drive, which carries the software to incapacitate him, take any internal memory stored on the augmentations he possesses, and leave nothing behind.

He will survive, but not in any way that a man like him would want. Campbell is ruined, after this: he’ll be thrown on the streets at best, sent to Coldridge and tortured at worst. Corvo doesn’t have to lay a hand on him in order to make the man pay for what he’s done.

 

***

 

After he’s out of Campbell’s office, clear of the mess that will develop the second that he’s found, Corvo decides to go back to Bottle Street. It’s just a brief detour, but one he feels like he should take. Once he gets there, though, he changes his opinion quickly. He wouldn’t have gone if the Outsider hadn’t indicated that it was of interest, and now he’s cursing himself for not trusting the intelligence and staying away.

He’s been accosted by a terribly disturbing old woman who seized hold of him the second he turned down the alley. The woman calls herself “Granny Rags”. Her eyes, both of them, are augmented, and not in the modern way. No: they’re lenses that open and close with unsettling clicking noises.

“He’s touched you too, hasn’t he?” she asks. “No need to answer, I see he has. I can feel it. What has he given you? What gifts? My black-eyed husband plays favorites…”

She’s as old as the hills, but Corvo has the funny feeling that if he bolts she’ll prove faster than he expects her to. Something about that comment—her “black-eyed” husband—rings wrong, but there’s no time to examine it now. He takes a couple of steps back, toward John Clavering Boulevard, where he could vanish in the crowd.

Granny Rags seizes his hand with the speed he suspected lurking under her wrinkled skin and clicking eyes. Not the flesh hand: the metal one. Corvo tries to yelp with surprise, fails, and steps backward straight into a wall. Undeterred, the old woman follows him, fingers exploring every inch of Corvo’s exposed hand. “It’s been too long since I held one of his creations,” she says. “Too long…”

This close, Corvo can see the mark etched into the side of the lens of her left eye. It’s the same system as the one he has, then. And this is ridiculous. He’s afraid of an old woman, who he can’t even question, because even if at one point she had been using the same system she isn’t anymore and he’s locked out of that. If this were anything else, Corvo would feel like he was in a farce.

She’s filed her teeth into points.

“I miss him,” Granny Rags says, abruptly letting go of Corvo’s hand. “He doesn’t visit anymore. He used to, when I was useful to him. Useful!”

What is she rattling on about?

“Look at you, all big and strong and young!” Corvo is fifty-four years old. Then again, he’s as young beside Granny Rags as Emily is beside him. He might as well be twenty-five again. “He’s using you for his ends. Hates OVERSEER, he does.”

Is she, Corvo thinks suddenly, talking about the Outsider? But he’s just an intelligence. That’s not to say that intelligences aren’t capable people—far from it, most of them are more competent and interesting than most physicals Corvo knows—but as a general rule it’s not intelligences that build augmented arms. Still, Corvo has never met anyone but the Outsider who could be claimed to have black eyes. This is too strange for words, if he had the voice to speak them.

“But he’ll come back to me, someday,” Granny Rags says. She pauses, gazing past Corvo’s shoulder at the rotting brick wall with a wistful little smile. And then she shakes herself. “Come with me. I can give you a gift. From him, through me, to you!”

Warily, making sure his weapons are within easy reach, Corvo follows Granny Rags further down the alleyway. The rain is falling properly here, unblocked by anything; they’re stepping through puddles just to walk down the street. Granny Rags appears not to be bothered, though the rain is running down her face and soaking her clothes, and Corvo under his hood and mask barely notices.

At a rusting steel door, she pulls out a key—a physical key!—and twists it in the lock. The hinges scream as the door opens. Inside, the room smells of rot and the iron tang of blood. Corvo makes sure his weapons are in easy access, hesitating at the threshold. Granny Rags laughs as she steps into the room. “I won’t bite,” she says. “You’re one of _his_.”

Motion sensor lights buzz to life overhead, casting the room in a sickly pale light. There are dead bugs in the lights, and though there’s flypaper hung around the walls there are more flies on the floor beneath the traps than stuck to the papers. The tubes of smashed neon signs are piled in corners, bits of them rolling across the floor. They tinkle with every step Corvo takes, broken glass crunching underfoot.

“It’s just a token, really, a trifle,” Granny Rags is saying, turning into a dilapidated sitting room. “I have a very special gift, you see, something he gave me. He’s so clever, don’t you know.”

Corvo’s increasingly beginning to think that the old woman is delusional and believes that the Outsider is a physical. Still, whoever’s really involved definitely is clever. He takes off his mask, cautious as ever; he doesn’t immediately see cameras, and besides there’s water seeping down behind the edges of his mask. He wipes his face as he watches Granny Rags open a drawer and take out a small plastic tub.

“You can call up viruses with this,” she says, snapping open the locks and pulling out a small memory chip. It’s dented, looks like it’s been bitten. It bounces little when she drops it into his palm. He tucks it away, unwilling to simply install it without knowing more. “No one will see you. You can do just what you like…whatever he’s asked of you.”

Corvo can’t adequately give his thanks when he’s a mute man conversing with a blind woman, but he nods anyway as he backs toward the door. She can obviously hear his footsteps clearly, because she’s tracking the sound with the turn of her head. It’s beyond unsettling.

She waves at him. “Give him my love!” she warbles, and goes to a door on the far side of the room, shutting it firmly behind her.

For half a second, Corvo hesitates: then he crosses the room again as quietly as he can and looks through a small hole rusted through the door. Beyond, the room is pitch-dark, except for the blue-light glow of monitor screens. They’re old, convex, snow and rainbow bars flickering and glitching around the edges. And on the screen, endless popup windows, chains of code…totally incomprehensible to Corvo except that he can clearly recognize the activity of computers _infested_ with viruses.

Granny Rags strokes one screen with a withered hand. “Oh yes, he’ll like this, he will...all my little birdies, all the ways to make the world his own...the Weeper won’t hold a candle to what you can do...what a present for him...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lest I forget to give credit where it's due: Granny Rags' little experiment is inspired by [this xkcd comic](https://xkcd.com/350/).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy weekend, everyone!!! 
> 
> I've actually remembered what "update schedule" means. Aren't you all proud? :D

Corvo gets out of that house as fast as he can. He gets to a safe spot—up in an abandoned skyway, easily accessible through an empty building, a spot out of surveillance—and checks on what, exactly, Granny Rags gave him. He’s nervous to plug it in, especially after seeing those viruses she’s breeding and knowing what she’s like.

“It’s a safe program,” the Outsider says. He’s sitting in midair as if in a chair, legs crossed, looking down at Corvo. “That woman…she wouldn’t interfere with what you’re doing here, not even by infecting you with one of her viruses. And rest assured that her work can’t compare with the system you’re currently running.”

Rainwater hits cold on Corvo’s skin, dripping through a hole in the roof as he pulls aside his collar and slides the chip in to begin installation. _What is it?_

“It’s a network virus,” the Outsider says. “The program will execute in the target system before spreading to the next. Affected systems will shut down temporarily. It’s not much, and OVERSEER is fully capable of stopping the spread, but it has an acceptable short-term effectiveness.”

_Good._ Corvo’s glad of the augmented vision, he really is. It allows him to properly visualize the software he has accessible without having to deal with gaze-access glasses or the like. There they are, the two programs he has: “Bend Time” and “Devouring Swarm”. _This works on security systems? Could I shut down a Wall of Light with this?_

“That is the intent,” the Outsider says. His green eyes glitter, as if reflecting the lights of Dunwall below. But the reflections are wrong, small details missing, as they always tend to be in simulations. It’s the only giveaway, other than the floating, that Corvo is alone in the skyway.

Corvo nods and dismisses the toolbar. _Is everything I can use a program?_

The Outsider shakes his head briefly. “Augmentations exist that will enable you to improve your agility, your stamina, and…if the resources are available…perform some nearly miraculous actions. All of those will be physical; you’ll need to get them from Piero.”

_He’s in contact with the creator of all this?_

“Contact, yes. Communication, no.” The Outsider stands up, feet touching the ground, and paces around the room with his hands behind his back. It’s a programmed behavior, that particular sort of walk: his default. “The plans will appear when available. He should be working on the agility and stamina augmentations now, and they’ll be installed upon your return. By the time you return with Emily, you should have access to even better technology.”

Tucking the memory chip away, Corvo stands up. He nods to the Outsider and the intelligence vanishes. For a moment, Corvo stands at the rail of the skyway and looks down, out the shattered glass window and onto the street below. Cars slide down the streets, sidewalks jammed with pedestrians; advertisements flash and flicker with gorgeous light that doesn’t reach the skyway. Hair dye, facial augmentation, clothes, sex, service—everything offered by a hundred competing corporations and guaranteed by OVERSEER.

The building across from him is a strange sort of street pantomime, banal and bizarre. Lazarillo candied beetles scuttle over a building in a dozen neon colors, each with the company name on the back, images sent from some hidden projector. Just a moment later, a gigantic toothbrush blazoned with “CARCOFINI” sweeps across the building, to brush away the beetles for good health. The sort of advertisement that catches the eye: some new partnership that will only end in catastrophe as one or the other outcompetes in the end, and buys its rival.

He turns away and walks off the skyway. In his pocket the hard drive seems heavy, though it weighs so little. It should be a thousand pounds, carrying all of Campbell’s secrets. There will be more on that drive than just Emily’s location, but that fact is the only one that matters. Forget the rest. He lost Jessamine. He won’t lose Emily, too.

 

***

 

Corvo lies back on the operating table, carefully ignoring the sounds from the lower end of the table while Piero works on his legs. The agility augmentations are going to be a little time-consuming to install, but worth his while: his ankle, knee, and hip joints will be mechanically replaced, with his core muscles artificially strengthened and the relevant software in his mind upgraded to account for the untried range of motion.

“—will improve your speed, explosiveness, deceleration and high-velocity direction changes,” Piero lectures. There’s a hiss and a faint grating of metal. “Agility is absorption and redirection of physical forces. You’re already intensely strong relative to your body weight and in phenomenal shape, so these augmentations are tailored to really enhance what you could already do, rather than create an entirely new set of skills.”

“That’s nice,” Corvo’s computerized voice says monotonously. “Any other ideas?”

“Something for stamina, though I don’t want to do another heavy augmentation procedure so soon,” Piero says. “Three or four days before it will be really safe to try the next one.”

“Think I can’t handle it?”

Piero looks up at Corvo. “I’ll be artificially increasing your oxygen transportation abilities,” he says. “Which means extreme alterations on a cellular level. And your heart will be upgraded again, to allow it to work even more efficiently. You’ll find an instant improvement in stamina, but it’s far more invasive than this work on your agility.”

Corvo nods and stares up at the ceiling of the operating garage. The fluorescent lights flicker, and all is silent except for Piero’s quiet, meticulous work. His assistant mechanics, simple intelligences in freestanding mechanical arms and the like, clank quietly as they move. Corvo’s currently paralyzed from the chest down, preventing him from feeling any of the procedure, but also guaranteeing he can’t do anything much.

It’s nice, having a normal augmentation procedure. He has vague memories of some of the procedures from Coldridge, and mostly those are of pain and a helpless kind of terror that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Corvo has never been one for memory modification, no matter how minor, so he’s yet to mention it in case Havelock and Pendleton decide to take exception to that. Corvo would like to think that he has reasonable autonomy here, but at the same time he’s fairly sure that he’s not entirely able to call all the shots. And he wants his mind intact as much as possible.

He takes the time to think, while he’s lying on the table. Really, since walking out of Coldridge, he hasn’t stopped moving once. Recuperated physically, yes—but he’s still off-balance, the world too loud and sharp and bright. The thin cushion covering the operating table, flimsy foam under cracking vinyl, feels like the bed of a king. Shows how skewed his perception is: once upon a time, he’d slept in the bed of an empress.

_Jessamine_.

CEO of Kaldwin Enterprises, the most powerful corporation of all the Isles. A business empire without peer, presided over by an empress whose casual words carried the weight of a legal signature. In the past, Jessamine’s father had presided over the Olaskir merger which had created the modern company, a buy-out that was surrounded in tales of intrigue, blood, and espionage.

Jessamine’s leadership was marked by no such thing. True, Kaldwin Enterprises still held OVERSEER’s favor in ways that no other company could manage. But Jessamine’s charitable efforts and attempts at reform won her a celebrity that no other business leader could match. She had the grace and poise of one of the monarchs of medieval history, and it was impossible not to treat her with deference. How Corvo had caught her attention was really beyond him, even after thirty-five years. They’d met when she was barely twelve years old; he, seven years her senior, had still bent his knee to her.

He had only recently been hired as a part of the private Kaldwin Security Corps, a junior member whose position came through the Blade Verbena award. He’d competed in a series of competitions designed to award scholarships and internships to deserving young people across the Isles. Corvo, a hotheaded nineteen-year-old boy from Karnaca, on the far side of Serkonos, had shocked everyone by winning the award against people with far more money and training. Determination and cunning were always his strong suit, and they’d told him it would serve him well in Dunwall.

And Jessamine had seen something in him, even at the age of twelve. She’d asked her father immediately if Corvo could be her bodyguard, at which everyone had laughed. There was no need for someone so young to serve as the bodyguard for a child, especially in this cutthroat world. Corvo had smiled uncomfortably, sure that he was going to be in trouble. But Euhorn Kaldwin had looked at him keenly, then acquiesced to his daughter’s demand.

For nine years, Corvo had worked faithfully as Jessamine’s bodyguard. He watched her grow into a ruler; she watched him grow into a warrior. There were two attempts on her life: one when she was barely fourteen and a second when she turned eighteen. He stopped them both before any of the other security personnel could move.

That second rescue was when the tension began, and she began to have stars in her eyes when she looked at him. He felt himself redden when she looked at him too long and gazed at her when her back was turned. On the eve of her nineteenth birthday, Jessamine cornered Corvo in her room and asked him if he felt the same way she did. He did.

Their affair went on for years, more or less in secrecy. Euhorn sold the remaining shares of the company to Jessamine on her twentieth birthday and she took the position as CEO; suddenly, Corvo’s job was a lot harder. He fought for her life with every weapon at his disposal, and often in person. Corporate Dunwall was a bloody place, and Corvo would not let Jessamine fall.

Jessamine was twenty-two and Corvo twenty-nine when Emily was born. Their relationship was still under heavy secrecy, and Jessamine brushed off all questions imperiously. Emily had been planned, desired: the few who knew were allowed to believe that she was accidental. Corvo and Jessamine knew the truth. No one guessed that Corvo’s fierce care for tiny Emily was parental, since his long history of loyalty to Jessamine must simply be an extension of that.

And so they had been, their strange family, seen together so often in public but never as mother, daughter, and father. No: they were empress, heiress, and bodyguard. Emily was sixteen when they finally told her that Corvo was indeed her father. She’d just laughed, hugged them both, and cheerfully said that she had already guessed.

His wise, perceptive, intelligent Emily. She’d insisted on learning self-defense, marksmanship, and fencing; besides that, she was a programmer of no small skill. And Jessamine insisted that Emily know business and the social graces. It was a lot of weight to put on a young woman’s slim shoulders, but Emily had Jessamine’s intellect and Corvo’s determination and, along with her own bold personality, she made it through. She was poised to take over Kaldwin Enterprises and make it greater than ever before.

But now Jessamine is gone. Emily is missing. And Corvo is alone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday, everybody. :)

“I gave you a one-in-five chance of escaping Coldridge,” Pendleton says admiringly, “and this should have been even more impossible. But here you are!”

Corvo doesn’t bother to answer. He hates that voice enough that he’d rather be left permanently mute. Unless he must speak to the Loyalists, he won’t.

He’s been handed around, had his hand shaken by Havelock, received a grateful and somewhat tearful thanks from Callista for protecting Geoff, and been introduced to their newest conspirator Teague Martin. Now he’s just waiting, still on the operating table while the partial paralysis wears off and he can test the new stamina augmentations. It’s been a few days since the mission to the server hub, and all the new hardware has been installed. Corvo feels better than good.

“It’s time for business. We’ve searched through Campbell’s files and cross-referenced it with our own data,” Havelock says. “We believe we know where Emily is being held.”

Martin clicks away at a monitor and a moment later a map flies up in Corvo’s vision. A hologram, like the Outsider, one only he can see but is still projected on the room’s monitors for all the rest. “We know that the Pendleton brothers were involved,” he says, “and that they’re getting a major share of Kaldwin Enterprises whenever Burrows manages to sway the board of directors into selling out. They spend a lot of free time here, at the Golden Cat.”

On the twisting network of white lines that represents Dunwall, a point flickers, demanding Corvo’s attention. He tracks the route, memorizing it as best he can. He glances at Havelock, hoping his questions will be clear without his needing to speak.

“No one would think to look in a virtual-reality brothel for the heiress of a business empire,” the old sailor says. “Particularly not in one which offers the exceptional experience of having physical companions rather than virtual reality and pressure suits.”

Corvo raises an eyebrow at that. It’s very common these days to have intimate relationships with intelligences rather than with a physical person. It’s facilitated by pressure technology and a heavy dose of virtual augmentation, but it’s more and more popular. Easier, to find an intelligence than a physical.

“You’ll need to prevent my brothers from carrying tales,” Pendleton says. He glances between Martin and Havelock, visibly stressed. “So…do what you have to.”

He’s encountered them before: Custis, at a dinner one evening, had made an inappropriate remark to Jessamine, and Corvo had evicted him from the premises without bothering to learn the man’s name. The Pendleton brothers were never more than nuisances, and Corvo isn’t really planning on killing them. But he nods and gives assent anyway. Obviously, it’s up to Corvo himself to actually solve mission logistics, and not the interest of the conspirators. They leave with hearty wishes of luck, and Corvo is left alone in the operating garage again, waiting for the feeling to come back to his body.

And then he’s not alone.

“Intriguing, that you’d serve Pendleton,” the Outsider muses. He’s sitting in midair again, beside the operating table, looking down at Corvo. “He was a rival of Jessamine’s.”

_Mines were never her concern_.

“They would have been, eventually.”

_Or not. Jessamine wasn’t interested in slavery_.

The Outsider cocks his head. “She owned half of Dunwall’s sweatshops, through one acquisition or another. You know that.”

Corvo doesn’t answer. This isn’t the time to discuss Jessamine’s morality. He turns his head so that he doesn’t have to look at the intelligence, though he doesn’t dismiss the Outsider. For a while, it’s just silent. Corvo can practically hear his own heart beating. The rain drumming on the garage door is soothing. He times his breathing by it.

“And you’ll kill Custis and Morgan, thereby cementing Treavor’s ownership of the company,” the Outsider says at last.

_I’m going to find Emily. Nothing else matters_.

“To you, I’m sure it doesn’t. But there will be an effect on Dunwall at large. Treavor has ideas about where to take the company. In some ways, they are less cruel; there will be fewer deaths in the mines and more will go home to their families at night. In other ways, they are worse, because Treavor has his sights set on working with Havelock Shipping to take advantage of mineral resources in Tyvia and Morley. The mines will spread, eating under Dunwall like the tunnels of worms in an apple.”

_That isn’t my problem_.

“Isn’t it?”

_If it is, I can’t solve it. There’s no good solution._

“I’m only curious to know which one you’ll eventually decide is the lesser of two evils.”

Corvo turns his head, looking at the Outsider again. _You said you were only my operating system. Is this what you’re supposed to do? Give advice?_

“I said I was your intelligence,” the Outsider murmurs. His green eyes shiver black, then green again. “I assist in making the most informed choices, so that you may maximize your benefits. That is my purpose with you.”

For a moment, Corvo considers replying, and then he happens to glance up at one of the monitors above him. The cognitive dissonance takes a moment to resolve, and then Corvo realizes—every other intelligence he ever sees is also on some physical monitor, for the benefit of people who don’t have augmented eyes or access to visors.

The Outsider isn’t there at all.

“I told you,” the Outsider says, “I’m _your_ intelligence. No one else needs to see me, do they?”

_I…_ Corvo looks back. The Outsider is gone from the chair, too. Corvo’s alone again, and this time he’s definitely alone.

 

***

 

Samuel drives Corvo across the city, along a route Corvo had previously walked. He sits in the backseat, listening to Samuel’s quiet humming and considering what’s ahead. The lights outside become a blur, and Corvo drifts off a little.

“Seen a lot in my time,” Samuel says suddenly. His thoughtful words jerk Corvo into wakefulness, and Corvo looks up to meet Samuel’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Watched the whole world go crazy. I might not have that many years on you, but I remember the early days of the singularity. The first riots and protests.”

He’s silent again for a little while. Sirens roar by outside in pursuit of some criminal. Corvo waits. It doesn’t sound like Samuel is done.

“There’s a lot in this city that can’t be explained,” Samuel goes on. “Voices where there shouldn’t be, lights in the sky, things in the river. Guess I’ve kind of seen it all. No one believes the word of an old man, of course, but the way you look around…guessing you’ve seen something too.”

Corvo inclines his head slightly. He doesn’t exactly want to admit to knowing about the Outsider, but he doesn’t somehow mind Samuel being aware that something else is going on. The old driver is trustworthy, more so than anyone involved here.

Samuel smiles into the rearview mirror. “Something’s looking after you,” he says. “Used to be stories about a god in this city. Something watching. Don’t know the truth of that one, but I do know that I sometimes do feel like something’s looking after me.”

_I know what you mean._

The message flashes up on a screen in the front console. They don’t speak again. No need, not as they near the mission location.

The Golden Cat stands shockingly near to the central offices of OVERSEER. Then again, perhaps it’s not shocking, since those who serve the singularity most closely are wealthy and given to the pleasures that money can buy. The brothel is in a red light district, full of VR buildings where an intelligence will serve a patron all night long. In such a virtual environment, the physical pleasures offered by this brothel come with a certain je ne sais quoi. While technically the virtual reality provides the same stimulus, something like this tends to attract wealthy patrons, like the Pendleton twins.

Breaking in is an interesting experience. The building is old, and due to the nature of it there are security guards but the systems are generally so old as to be useless. No one will think of updating them, not in this part of the city, not even for a wealthy clientele. Despite the antique visual appeal of the domed roof and elegantly arched windows, the advertisements at street level—for lightning oil, for Barrowes Barbershop and Surgery, for Ogden’s ladies clothes—all distract from the effect.

They also provide a convenient cover. Behind the neon lights, no one notices a single dark shadow flitting up the marble walls, pitted from acid rain. Corvo can easily reach a window. He cracks the latch in moments and forces up the long-closed sash before sliding into an empty room.

Rain blows in the window behind him, soaking the floor. The curtains are red, like the active rooms of the brothel, but it looks like no one has used this one for a while. Corvo disregards the open window until, on second thought, he opens it wider than before. It’ll be an easy avenue of exit when he needs one.

Slipping through the halls and avoiding courtesans, patrons, and security is easy enough. No motion detectors here, except in the main halls, and even those—as per the daytime standard—are off during main business hours to prevent false alarms. So Corvo makes his way through the brothel, trying to discover where the Pendleton brothers lurk, if they’re present at all.

The corridors are surprisingly quiet, baroque walls built to prevent indiscreet noise from spilling out of any of the rooms. Facsimile paintings lord over the halls, men and women with forgotten names staring down from canvases that, when studied closely, are revealed to be wide screens. Soft carpets hide Corvo’s footsteps. Perfume fills the air. It’s like a step back in time.

He’s on the second floor, passing by an unremarkable door, when his heart jumps and there’s the ringing that indicates nearby augments. Corvo pauses and takes a look around. The location marker looks like it’s in the room beside him, so he carefully opens the door and steps in, locking it behind him. This is a server room, filled with a variety of unattended monitors. It takes only a moment for Corvo to log on to the necessary computer—who, in this day and age, doesn’t lock everything behind multi-step authentication?—and discover the file, buried inside a few hidden folders. He connects himself, hardware to hardware, and downloads it. The wait is obnoxiously slow, and he taps one metal finger irritably on the desktop, producing a small ringing sound. It’s loud, in the soft silence of the brothel.

And then he’s not alone. “Possession,” the Outsider says. “For a brief time, you’ll be able to see through the eyes of security monitors and directly access closed systems. A dangerous game to play, and one which may alert OVERSEER to your presence, but useful.”

_I haven’t used the other programs yet_.

“I suspect you will,” the Outsider says. He paces around behind Corvo, hands folded behind his back. “The Pendleton brothers are used to keeping corporate secrets. There will be expanded security systems surrounding Emily, much more complex than those you’ve encountered already. Still, you have access to better technology than anyone in this building.”

Corvo watches the Outsider over his shoulder as the intelligence completes his circuit of the room. _You’ll guarantee these systems over all of OVERSEER? A little overconfident, are you?_

The Outsider’s eyes glint with amusement. Their green is alarmingly bright, in his otherwise monochrome appearance. His hand clips through the edge of a table as he waves dismissively. “It isn’t overconfidence if it’s true, dear Corvo.”

_You haven’t exactly convinced me._

“Even if the systems fail, I’m fairly sure you could tackle this with your hands tied behind your back,” the Outsider says. He’s positively smirking. “With all your skills? I’m just an accessory. You’ll be fine, with or without me.”

_We’ll see about that_. Corvo lifts his hand in ironic salute and disconnects from the computer. In the same instant, the Outsider vanishes.

What an intelligence. He’s got mannerisms that are pretty damn unique, and considering that he’s meant to be a source of knowledge and a guide to the operating system, he’s also…something of a flirt. It’s not unappealing. He has pretty eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! SECRETS REVEALED AND EMILY RETRIEVED!!!
> 
> ...posting schedule is still technically maintained.

Finding the Pendleton brothers isn’t hard. And getting them to spill what he needs to know is easier than even Corvo had expected. It’s barely even a fight with either man: they both draw on him, but Corvo is fast enough to fight back and he handily gets the upper hand on both. After that, it’s a matter of demanding to know where Emily is, and they both give the same answer. Yes, she’s in secret rooms beneath the Golden Cat; no, they don’t know the door passwords. But the art dealer Bunting does, and he’s busy with a courtesan downstairs.

Corvo leaves the two brothers unconscious in an alley. Dunwall being what it is, and these two being who they are, they’ll be gone before they even wake up. Let justice be served by the people who should be the arbiters, and not by Corvo.

Getting to Bunting, and getting him to give up the passwords, is easy enough when the man apparently takes his pleasure from being electrocuted in a chair. A few shocks and he’s desperate to talk; Corvo leaves him be, after that. His identity isn’t under threat from a blindfolded man in a room with no security cameras.  

Four passwords later and Corvo is in. With great care he descends a flight of steps, pausing at the bottom to survey. The short hallway before him is definitely full of motion detectors and cameras, with a door at the far end: the obvious answer is to knock the whole setup out with execution of the Devouring Swarm program. He sprints down the hall in the darkness and shoulders open the door into a workshop.

And instantly there are gunshots. Guards, all heavily armed—Corvo dives for cover and comes up shooting. They take cover, too, and in an instant Corvo executes Bend Time so he can take proper stock. A timer is counting down and he has only seconds to count three guards and a route to each of them, to predict their movements—

—time accelerates and he’s already moving, vaulting over a table and tackling a guard. The man goes down with a heavy thud and Corvo nails him with a solid blow to the head. He knows where the second is, can hear his footsteps, and rolls under a table to come up behind the man. The guard goes down hard, head striking the table with a crack. Before he can blink there’s a click behind him. On sheer instinct, Corvo ducks a gunshot and turns right into a charge from the third guard, who he grapples with a moment before choking him into unconsciousness.

He's not even breathing heavily, when it’s said and done.

For a second, Corvo stands in the suddenly empty laboratory. He checks the pulses of the three men—they’re down, but not in danger of dying as far as he can tell. An hour in surgery and they’ll be right back to normal, if with a few patches added.

No more waiting. Corvo finds the door to the room where Emily waits locked; instead of trying to search out a password, he breaks it down. It’s not reinforced. A good kick and it collapses inward, and Corvo sees what they’ve done to her.

Emily is laid out on an operating table, clinical, well-furbished. It would be comfortable, if her wrists and ankles weren’t cuffed in place, her shorn head studded with electrodes, tubes and wires sliding into her body. Corvo can see her pulse, her breathing, her brain—all read out on a monitor over her head, lines and dashes of data that signal her life. Her left arm is missing, replaced by a bare metal skeleton; there are pieces of hardware jaggedly inserted into the rest of her body. There’s no scar on her throat. So her voice is intact…why hers and not Corvo’s?

That’s a question for another time. For now, he has to get her out of here.

They’ve stripped her down so that she’s wearing a thin hospital gown that barely covers her. She’s unconscious, shivering, unaware. Her eyes move behind closed lids, tracking things Corvo can’t see. What programs are they running inside her? What have they _done_ to her?

A targeted burst of Devouring Swarm gives him time to pull many of the connecting cables and cords out, and Possession lets him into the system long enough to force an override and fully detach her from the rest of it. He wraps her in his long coat and picks her up; with his augmentations, she might as well be a feather. Emily never reacts at all.

Corvo gets out of the Golden Cat as fast as he can. He carries Emily down the safest route off the building and ducks into an alley, where Samuel waits in the idling taxi. Samuel sees the burden in Corvo’s arms and opens the door for him, letting Corvo help Emily inside.

“What happened to her?” Samuel asks, eyes wide. Corvo shakes his head, slashing a hand over his throat: they can’t afford speech, not now, not outside the Blackout District.

In the taxi, they hurtle in silence back across Dunwall. The banal advertisements floating around them, for cigars and textiles and audiologs, make Corvo sick. Underneath all the glamor is what’s happened to Emily, to him. It’s the Weeper virus, the filth lurking under the neon veneer of this, the greatest city in the Isles. Dunwall is built on lies.

 

***

 

The Loyalists are stunned when Corvo walks into the Hounds Pits with Emily in his arms, Samuel on his heels. He ignores them all, carrying her into the operating garage and laying her down as carefully as he can. Callista rushes in with a real blanket, and something to support her head. Emily never moves, not even the twitch of a finger.

“Help her,” Corvo tries to snap at Piero. The voice doesn’t convey urgency, but Corvo’s stance must, because Piero downright quails.

“I don’t know what’s been done to her,” he says. “And I’d rather not connect her until I know she’s clean. Chances are that there’s software installed that I—”

“Don’t.” Corvo cuts him off. “If you can’t solve this, I’ll find someone who will.”

Havelock, studying Corvo keenly, chivvies Pendleton, Piero, and Callista out of the room. Teague shakes his head as he steps out. “Good luck,” he says. “We’ll wait for you, and in the meantime Piero will work from this end.”

And then Corvo is alone.

He drops down to sit at one of the tables beside Emily, head in his hands. All at once, any optimism he had is dead. He aches, straight through to his bones. _I can’t do this._

“You can,” the Outsider says.

Corvo looks up at the intelligence. _How do you know?_

“Because I know exactly how much you can do,” the Outsider says. He’s looking past Corvo, at Emily. “And I’m well aware of what needs to be done. This is a real concern now, and not something I can leave to the antics of pawns.”

_Pawns?_

“I’m not what you think I am. Put together the pieces, Corvo, you’re smart enough.”

Corvo thinks of Granny Rags and her black-eyed husband, of the fact that Piero is in communication but not contact with the programmer, of the way the Outsider flirted with him in the Golden Cat, of the fact that someone had to have made the physical augmentations and programmed them, of the way that the Outsider speaks and acts and—

_You’re a physical_.

“I am,” the Outsider says, holographic figure pacing around the table on which Emily rests. His hip clips through the corner but he never stops moving, gaze roving over her body. “I didn’t need Piero or your Loyalist employers to know of my existence. And if this hadn’t happened to Emily, you’d have gone on thinking I was only an intelligence. This body is my simulacrum, the visual I present to you.”

_Why help me now? Emily’s in a coma, the rescue failed—_

The Outsider stops cold and looks at him. His green eyes flicker to black and back, strobing weirdly. “It revealed more than I expected. I knew that OVERSEER was looking for more computing power, but this is beyond what I’d anticipated. Emily’s new hardware is meant to link her into OVERSEER and use her as an automaton.”

_A what._

“An automaton, Corvo, a—”

_I know what they are!_ Corvo slams his fist down on the table, rattling the stacks of external hard drives and memory cards. The Outsider’s gaze is steady. _OVERSEER has always worked through virtual intelligences, not people. Automata are useless_.

“ _Were_ useless,” the Outsider corrects. “OVERSEER was never the true singularity. It’s still assimilating its power. It has no control in the real physical world yet, not the way it needs if it’s going to centralize, and even its virtual power remains limited—that’s how I’ve lasted this long, how it lost control of the Weeper virus.”

It only takes half a second for the words to sink in. _OVERSEER made the virus…_

“Yes,” the Outsider says. “OVERSEER and its servants, Campbell and Burrows. Utterly unprovable unless you’re able to break into its systems and access their records.” He looks back down at Emily. “The virus failed. It was supposed to engage OVERSEER control over connected systems and instead it began to kill people. If it gets loose, it may even threaten OVERSEER’s structure…but that’s not a useful avenue. We’ll focus on the fact that OVERSEER and its servants are about to move into the physical world and present you with a very real threat.”

_I don’t care about myself_. Corvo takes five steps and he’s around the table, face to face with the Outsider. _Save my daughter._

The Outsider just stares at him. “I can’t come here in person.”

_Then I’ll bring Emily to you!_

“No,” the Outsider says, sharp and angry. “If you do that, OVERSEER will find me, and our chance of doing anything to stop Burrows dies with me. You need someone else.”

Corvo wants to _strangle_ the Outsider. _Who can help? Piero can’t and every other programmer I know—_

“Anton Sokolov,” the Outsider interrupts.

That’s a name Corvo hasn’t heard in a while. Sokolov had been one of Jessamine’s, the inventor of the Walls of Light which made getting to Campbell so difficult. He’s also got the arc pylons and interrogation chairs and a number of other devices. Corvo nods to the Outsider to go on and explain.

“A distasteful and uninteresting man,” the Outsider says. “He assisted OVERSEER in the creation of the virus. His security expertise is great, but his activity is likely connected to what has happened to Emily. If you want to undo the damage, or at least mitigate it, you need him. And I need him, if I’m to understand exactly what’s happening and what OVERSEER plans.”

Corvo is already picking up his mask and shrugging on his coat. _Where is he?_

The Outsider shakes his head. “I don’t know where he is. OVERSEER has done a very good job of making him disappear. Go to Daud. He’ll be in the Rudshore Financial District, in the old Chamber of Commerce building, with his Whalers. Like you, he bears my mark. Tell him to help you find Sokolov.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild chapter appears!

Instead of a ride with Samuel, Corvo takes to the long-defunct subway tunnels. They’re dark and cold and somehow slightly drier than anywhere else in Dunwall. He goes carefully, listening to the roar of traffic overhead, the distant music, the thunder of the factories. Rudshore is a fair way off, on the other side of the Blackout District. It had been prosperous, once, until a series of economic downturns and the final destruction of the monarchy had brought Dunwall to its knees before the new corporatocracy. Now it’s in worse ruin than the Blackout District, with the added struggle of having next to no permanent residents due to its former status as a service sector.

Finding the building is simple enough. The Commerce Building would have been a destination, in the old days; there’s still signage in the half-flooded tunnels which gives him maps with which to navigate and indications of where his stop would have been. Corvo avoids stepping in the water: at any disturbance the hagfish-infested waters writhe, looking for prey. Rats run squeaking past him. He encounters a few homeless folk, a few Weepers with spitting augments that are slowly killing them, and slips by a smallish gang whose base sits in one of the subway stops.

At the Commerce Building stop, Corvo emerges from the subway. The flight of steps comes up into an empty square behind the half-ruined building. No sign of people, until Corvo takes his third step. And then out of nowhere, as if they’d teleported, two men in gas masks appear.

“Who are you?” one of them demands.

Corvo holds out his hand, in answer. There’s a moment of silence, as both guards stare at the mark there, and then the other man nods. “All right,” he says, voice a wheeze through the mask. “We’ll take you to Daud.”

They lead him inside, opening locked doors with intricate passwords, keycards, and even retinal scans. Inside, the building is half collapsed. The walls are bare concrete, with nothing for wires to hide behind, and the general attitude of the men and women in here says that they’re standing in a pocket of “nothing”, a blind spot in OVERSEER’s vision. The network here is clearly private, meant specifically to keep only the Whalers online. Corvo’s automatically linked: it must be the Outsider’s system, something safe, something that can’t be touched by the Weeper virus.

People look at him as he passes, everyone in that same gas mask, hiding their identities. Corvo nods at some of them; they return the gesture. It’s intensely awkward, or it would be if Corvo had a mind for anything but meeting this man who might be able to help Emily. It takes him a moment to realize that he, also, goes masked: of course they’re looking at him. No one here is showing their face. These people wear their gas masks to prevent their faces from being tracked, just as Corvo wears his. If Daud is one of the Outsider’s people, and the Outsider was responsible for the plans of Corvo’s mask, was he also the one who suggested this plan?

At the door of an office, the lead man knocks on the door. “Sir. Visitor.”

Mere moments later, the door opens. The man leaning on the frame is about as tall as Corvo, well-built and stern, with keen eyes. His left arm, like Corvo’s, has been replaced; the make is just slightly different, but he too has the Outsider’s mark blazoned on the back of the hand. His red coat, crisscrossed with half a dozen belts and bandoliers, looks like it’s been reinforced to stop bullets. This has to be Daud.

For a long moment, he just stares. Finally, he sighs. “You’re one of his. Come in.”

Corvo follows Daud into the office, removing his mask as he goes. _Could be friendlier if you tried…_

“No, I couldn’t. That mark is the only thing you have going for you,” Daud grouches, moving to sit behind the desk. “Not like your face is doing you any favors.”

_You can hear me?_

“Yes, I can hear you. Your system should automatically connect to the network in here. You and I are compatible. He wouldn’t let me have that much peace.”

_Granny Rags…?_

Daud snorts. “You really think that he’d leave her on the network.”

_Fair enough_. Corvo sits down in the chair facing the desk. It’s a damn relief to be able to properly talk to someone else, without that monotone voice, even if Daud is impossibly unfriendly. _The Outsider told me I should come to you about Sokolov._

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of this mess before he sends you on some kind of quest that gets you killed. Like this one.”

_I need Sokolov to help my daughter._

For a long moment, Daud pauses. His eyes sweep over Corvo, and then Corvo sees it: his own face, on a poster tacked to the wall. Daud follows his gaze and smiles, faint and twisted. “A fugitive, aren’t you? Smart to wear that mask. Doesn’t register as a face.”

_No._

“His idea?”

_What do you think?_

“I think he’s happy to have a new puppet to dance on his strings,” Daud says grimly. “If you’re going to get Sokolov for your daughter because he suggested it—”

Corvo cuts him off, still studying Daud’s wall, which is covered in papers, all tacked up. The wall is covered in faces, names, maps, places. Some of them are old, some are new, some have their faces crossed out. _I already know that he wants Sokolov for his own reasons and I don’t care._

Daud’s brows rise, just a little. “Callous son of a bitch, aren’t you.”

With a flash of insight Corvo sees it. Those faces are almost all people who’d turned up conveniently dead, before he went into Coldridge. Never his concern, except when it came to keeping his family safe. Which he had…until the day when a man had come out of nowhere and driven a sword right through Jessamine’s heart. There are many wetworkers in Dunwall: corporate espionage is a profitable thing. But there’s one man whose infamy is greater than any other, the man whose loyalty can be bought and sold for the price of risking a knife in the spine. _Yes. And you’re a wetworker. The Knife of Dunwall?_

“I’m no worse than any other killer in Dunwall,” Daud says coolly. “At least I confess to it.”

Corvo shrugs. _I just need to know where Sokolov is and I’ll be on my way._

There’s a brief pause. Finally, Daud shakes his head. “I owe you,” he mutters.

_Owe me?_

Daud looks at him, flinty eyes steady and cold. “I took out the contract on Jessamine,” he says. “I owe you for six months in Coldridge and—”

The man who killed Jessamine is sitting right in front of Corvo.

He doesn’t remember moving. Corvo only remembers white-hot rage and a crashing sound and then crouching over Daud amid the splintered, shattered remains of the desk. He’s got the wetworker on the floor, held by the throat, augmented hand choking off his air, Daud…only barely struggling at all.

Why isn’t he fighting back?

_Fight me, damn it!_

“I deserve this,” Daud wheezes, face reddening. “I regret it.”

_Why her? What was so special that you regret killing her?_

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Corvo feels like all his weight is on Daud’s neck, on his hand. _Then why did you do it at all?_

Daud shakes his head. He connects: _I don’t know._

For a second, it feels like the entire planet has fallen out from under Corvo. There isn’t even a reason of profit, which might disgust him but he might understand. There’s simply…nothing. A regret without a reason, regret without a source. And Corvo, in that moment, learns the meaning of _hate._

He lets go and stumbles back, connection fading in and out as his mind wanders. "Why are you walking away?" Daud rasps, staggering to his feet. "Kill me, Attano. You deserve it."

_Killing you would be a mercy. Live with your regret._

Daud leans heavily on the wall, hand over some dead man’s face. He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t look at Corvo, either. His breathing is harsh, loud in the sudden silence. Did any cameras see that? No, Daud is the kind of man too paranoid for security systems.

_Where’s Sokolov?_

“Kaldwin’s Bridge, North End. Sokolov’s got a safe house there, lit up so you can’t miss it. It’s guarded, Walls of Light and security systems.”

_Not a problem._

Daud laughs humorlessly. “Right. Can’t tell you what it’s like inside, only that the house is there.”

Corvo turns and goes to the window, throwing it open. He glances over his shoulder as he fits his mask on again. _We're not even. You still owe me._

“Can’t settle this one,” Daud says. He looks away. “Get out, before I change my mind about fighting back.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday, everybody!! If you're having a rough day, I hope a little bit of action will help. <3

Kaldwin’s Bridge is, of course, named for Jessamine’s father. Just hearing the name feels like a knife shoved between Corvo’s ribs. It’s a titanic structure, spanning the Wrenhaven River with a majesty that feels out of place in Dunwall’s modern world. It belongs to a different, brighter age, before the sea view it once had was barricaded by the retaining wall, though it was built more than fifty years after the wall first went up. Wide and well-populated, it’s a civic center in its own right, houses and buildings all along its length with roads and alleys between, except in the center where the drawbridge sits. And it’s heavily guarded by police and Tallboys.

Unfortunately, Corvo can’t start his climb on the far side of the Wrenhaven. The east side of the river is well protected: it’s not part of the city’s industrial sector. Most of it is residential, or at least filled with services for the wealthy. And certainly the Weeper virus won’t have made inroads there, where OVERSEER’s best defenses and attention are concentrated.

Once upon a time, Corvo had lived there, since Dunwall Tower sits adjacent to Coldridge Prison on a cliff over the east shore of the Wrenhaven. The Drapers Ward is on the east side—once, Corvo had spent six hours there cooling his heels while Jessamine and Emily had fun at the Chesney Clothing Company—as is the ancient clock tower. Silvergraphers like Modotti make their business on the east side, the Amphitheatre White Star holds court over the entertainment district, and purveyors of fine goods like Rosewine Industries have headquarters there.

There, too, is where the service-sector wars are waged: a particularly interesting one was being conducted between Oppueto Exotics and Pintaral Imports. Both companies work with colored inks, a rare sort of business when physical arts are so expensive, and there’s only so much market space. Horizon Shipping will only service one company, and neither Dunwall Market nor Havelock Shipping want to be involved in such a niche market. The fighting over those inks is as fierce as any other corporate warfare; Jessamine had actually picked up a few shares from Pintaral, betting that they would come out on top.

But right now all that’s irrelevant. To get to the safe house, Corvo will have to cross through the Southside Gate, guarded but not heavily since the area is largely abandoned due to the Weeper virus and proximity to the Blackout District. The drawbridge, the most heavily secured area of the bridge, will present a challenge; he’ll have to get over the Midrow Substation next, and then he’ll be in the North End. Sokolov’s safe house will be in sight.

The Southside Gate is a ridiculous misnomer. It should be the Westside Gate, but Corvo was never asked his opinion on the name. And it isn’t as if it matters; the bridge is just a bridge, and right now his only concern is getting through it. The Gate itself presents no problems: Corvo moves quickly and quietly to evade security systems, knocking out one particularly troublesome set of motion detectors when it becomes necessary. But it’s not difficult to climb up and over the gate and down onto the bridge itself, in among the apartments and abandoned buildings.

The going is slow, but Corvo is patient. He has to navigate around Walls of Light and arc pylons with irritating frequency. Even though there are few physical guards, the security systems are still a blanket over the bridge. More often than not, he’s reduced to backtracking around a building he’d just circled to look for a different route. It’s agonizing.

Quickly enough he’s on the edge of the residential area and on a building overlooking the drawbridge. This is a moment to stop and observe, and Corvo does not like what he sees. The drawbridge enables ships to pass underneath and up the Wrenhaven, two sides lifting up on cables to permit passage. On the other side is the Midrow Substation, where bridge controls are located. Although the drawbridge is relatively short, it’s also entirely open. No decent cover, unless Corvo tries to climb under the bridge, which he’s frankly not stupid enough to do. And the lack of cover means that he’s going to immediately have all three Tallboys, several very large guard dogs, and a dozen armed police on top of him. And there’s really, as far as Corvo can tell, no good way to avoid all of this.

Best to get this over with fast.

His biggest problem, he thinks as he carefully descends the wall to reach the drawbridge, will be the Tallboys. They’re mechanical stilt-suits, perhaps fifteen feet tall, with heavy armor and spindle legs. With spotlights and significant attack power in the form of incendiary devices and small _cannons_ , they’re not to be trifled with. Rumor has it that the pilots are wired directly into their suits as a form of augmentation, drugged to make sure they stay in line.

At the base of the wall, Corvo begins to carefully make his way across the drawbridge. He counts five guard dogs and their handlers, each dog augmented with extra motion detectors, stronger jaws, and other augmentations until they’re barely recognizable except in shape. The Tallboys have a set patrol path, back and forth; as long as he stays out of direct line of sight, Corvo thinks he’ll be fine. The rain helps, sheeting down and disguising movement.

Slowly, carefully, placing every step precisely, Corvo navigates the edge of the bridge, using the descending drawbridge cables for some degree of cover. Ahead are the huge hinges; beyond that, the empty stretch of the drawbridge, the most dangerous part of this crossing. He can already see the chains and cables holding up the cables on the far side, and thinks of climbing them to reach the Midrow Substation controls. It will let him avoid the Walls of Light that defend the substation gate proper.

For just a second, Corvo thinks he’ll make it.

And then a spotlight flashes on him.

Corvo swears internally as alarms scream out. He breaks into a dead run, sprinting for the chains that represent the fastest way out of here. The Tallboys clank toward him, spindly giants looming out of the rain, firing indiscriminately. Dogs bay and bark, people yell and gunshots ring out.

Before anything can get worse, Corvo executes Bend Time. His processing accelerates, giving him the chance to take it all in: yes, there are Tallboys practically on top of him, but the human handlers of the dogs aren’t coming nearer. It’s a bad advantage but he’ll take it. The chains are within running distance and he’ll be out of reach of the dogs, at least.

He’s faster than the Tallboys and more maneuverable, which means all he can do is run like hell and hope that the random path he draws is enough to confuse their sensors. He feels a bullet hit his augmented arm with a flash of agony. Immediately the pain response from the arm is muted and he just keeps running.

They’re right on top of him when he leaps for the chains, pulling himself up them as fast as he can. An explosion detonates right under him and Corvo swings out _off_ the bridge, over the water below, and he’s coming back, toward the Tallboys. Something has to give or he’s going to get killed and he executes Devouring Swarm to buy some time. He hears the dogs falling silent, sees lights flicker—

—and the Tallboys are _still shooting_.

The only way out is up.

He locks his foot into a loose cable and hauls himself up, immediately establishing a good rhythm offset by the augmented limbs. He’s always been a good athlete—he has to be—but the augmentations send him flying up the cable like some kind of acrobat. He’s out of reach of the dogs now and, even though he’s in range of gunshots, the rain and movement and extra chains make accuracy difficult.

At the top of the cable he hoists himself onto the slick, heavy main cable and runs for the Substation. He hits the roof and slides, crashing to a halt out of immediate view of any cameras or motion trackers. The Substation is a large structure, gated, which spans the bridge, controls the drawbridge, and serves as the guard for the North End. There are guards, but none yet on the roof. Alarms are still screaming but it appears that he has a moment to think.

The Substation is the tallest structure on the bridge, and from here Corvo is level with the Dunwall skyline. He sees, up the river on the bank he’d just left behind, the spotlit silver pillar of OVERSEER’s server hub. The staggered shapes of skyscrapers, dotting the city; the huge silhouette of Coldridge Prison and Dunwall Tower near the bridge; the mansions and vast apartment complexes ahead. And behind, the poorly lit and vacant blank space that is the Blackout District, the factory districts and manufacturing sector. Looming over it all, the retaining wall, the wall protecting Dunwall from the rising sea, the Wrenhaven River crashing against its base, the locks and gates admitting huge tanker ships and barges full of goods from the rest of the Isles.

Below, in the North End, Corvo sees more of the same as in Southside: Walls of Light, arc pylons…but no Tallboys and next to no guards and dogs. If he could just reprogram the systems to let him pass, he could disappear down there in seconds.

He can do that.

Corvo calls up the programs on his visual screen and executes Possession. He’s inside the guard tower’s systems, looking at the .gff code files that specify the people allowed to pass without harm, and adds his own file to the list. It doesn’t escape his notice that it’s listed, not as corvo_attano.gff, but as marked.gff; a small subterfuge that wouldn’t escape a detailed observer, but will throw off cursory observation. And, with a blink, he’s out of the system, no one the wiser.

Doors slam open behind him, guards charging out onto the roof, and Corvo bails. He hits the wall and slides, augmented hand kicking in an automatic program to catch as best it can, and he synchronizes his movements to it to hurtle down the bridge and onto the ground of the North End. The gates are opening, Tallboys clanking menacingly through, and Corvo bolts for the safe darkness of houses and apartments. Guards give chase and Corvo, hoping he did that reprogramming right, throws himself right through a Wall of Light.

Behind him, he hears continued pursuit, but he doesn’t stop running. In the tangled streets and houses, with no active surveillance systems, he’ll be almost impossible to track. And moments later, he’s gone into the dark, abandoned houses of the North End.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update day!!!
> 
> I hope the middle of the week finds you all well!! We're on the downhill climb now toward the weekend! <3

The blasted apartment where Corvo takes refuge was destroyed in one of the recent Weeper riots. People trying to get out of the Blackout District, in the last six months, had tried to do anything to get away. Those who couldn’t afford to make a real move but needed refuge claimed that the rest of the city didn’t care. They were right, of course, but their attempts to force their way over the Kaldwin Bridge had resulted only in chaos, death, and property damage.

Lucky that this apartment is still abandoned.

Dust drifts through the air with every step Corvo takes. The rain sluices down, drumming on the roof, but in here it’s plenty dry. And empty. He makes his way through the first floor, unable to avoid paying attention to the ash-covered still life of whoever used to live here. Framed silvergraphs hang on the walls of the first floor, showing the small family who’d occupied this little apartment: a grandfather, a married couple, a teenage daughter, and a small son. They smile at him, and Corvo finds himself hoping that they made it across the bridge. Their other possessions are scattered about in the other rooms, though not many remain: looters have taken most things.

A ceramic lamp stands on a table, intact except for its missing shade; the chair beside it is a pile of scorched sticks. Broken glass litters every room, crunching faintly under Corvo’s boots. The paint on cement walls is chipped and cracked, from age and from impact. The stairs creak as he climbs to the apartment on the second floor, which is slightly more intact. He nudges the door open with care, but there’s no alarm. There’s a clock on a table by the door, an old-style thing with actual works and a little round face; the lights, when Corvo tries the switch, won’t come on or even flicker. It looks like this place has been thoroughly cleaned out.

There’s a mostly-intact room with a stripped-bare bed and plastic chest of drawers where Corvo decides to stay until things quiet down outside. He sits down across from a window, well out of sight, to clean his weapons and take stock. With what would have been a groan of relief, if he still had his larynx, Corvo sinks down to sit by the wall. He might be augmented, but he can still be tired.

It isn’t, somehow, a surprise when the Outsider appears abruptly. And it’s even less of a surprise when he starts talking as if they’d just been having a conversation and are picking up after an interruption, as if they’re friends.

“Well done out there.”

_You didn’t warn me that Devouring Swarm wouldn’t work on Tallboys._

The Outsider shrugs faintly. “I had no idea. No one else has tried such a maneuver, let alone do something as foolhardy as run straight across the drawbridge and into the line of fire. You intrigue me.”

Corvo raises his eyebrows, then, watching the Outsider where he stands looking down at Corvo with green intensity. _Why?_

“Because your behavior is unpredictable,” the Outsider murmurs. “Every algorithm, every predictor—where it should have succeeded, it fails. There are others like you, of course, every equation has its exception. You’ve met them, or you will meet them soon. But thus far, even I haven’t been able to see what you will do. You’re…different.”

_How?_

The Outsider’s brow furrows a little. “How to explain this to someone who only uses the technology…” It’s thoughtful, not pejorative, and Corvo takes no offense. “There is chaos inherent in every system. Randomness. It exists conditionally, environmentally, and intrinsically. No algorithm is a perfect predictor. OVERSEER can only calculate probabilities based on the millions of variables that affect every person as they pass through a single day, and even the singularity can’t account for it all. Probability is a ‘best guess’, if you will. And more often than not, that ‘best guess’ is correct.”

He turns and walks to the window, looking out into the street. His feet make no noise on the floor. “There is of course an element of determinism in it all. The final outcome is created by a chain of cause and effect; the conditions of the beginning create the end. The relationship is only, however, able to be determined post hoc—before the end result is seen, the result is only a probability. And if that probability is a best guess, then on occasion the best guess must be wrong. You follow?”

_Yes._ Corvo continues cleaning the gun, piece by piece, mechanical, watching the Outsider’s silhouette and the way that the lights outside flash through his body, leaving no shadows behind.

“This is where OVERSEER fails. It may be the singularity, but singularity means only that it is the only superintelligence present in the computing systems of the world. It does not mean that it is the only possible intelligence. It may be the panopticon, but panopticon means only that it can see all, not that it does see all. In the ancient theories that gave us the term, the panopticon is only a scenario where a person could be watched at any time and could never know when the attention of the observing entity was upon them. Our singularity has become the observing entity, but it has blind spots. And those blind spots are the places where the ‘best guess’ fails.”

_You’re saying I’m a blind spot_.

“You are an improbability,” the Outsider says. He turns so that his profile is to Corvo, as if he’s some statue. “We all live in a place called the edge of chaos. It’s the moment between order and disorder, the optimal state of living for both physical and virtual intelligences. Your choices continue to introduce disorder to the system. You take the most improbable route, increasing the chance that an observer will fail to predict what you will do next. With every action you take, the chaos in the system increases. The system is forced to adapt. And, Corvo, it isn’t adapting. OVERSEER can’t keep up with you. There’s more to it than this, but this is all I can easily explain. One might call you an agent of change.”

_Is that why you chose me? What about Daud? Granny Rags? Your others?_

The Outsider nods slowly. Outside a police vehicle howls past, sirens wailing; Corvo can hear the Outsider’s voice perfectly over it. “There’s nothing more interesting than watching someone cause chaos and seeing what the effects of that will be.”

Corvo rises to his feet. The gun is clean, and pursuers or not…it’s time to get moving again. _Good to know you think so highly of me._

For the first time, Corvo sees the Outsider smile. It’s faint, vague and unreadable, but definitely there. “It could be said…you fascinate me.”

Why can’t he stay angry at this man? That wry little smile makes him feel warm inside, as if he’s around someone he actually likes. _High praise_.

“I don’t say that to many.”

As he takes the mask from his belt, preparing to settle it over his face again, Corvo meets the Outsider’s eyes. _See you on the other side._

There’s a faint flicker of uncertainty in the Outsider’s expression. “Corvo,” he says, and Corvo pauses just before fitting the mask. “…good luck.”

 

***

 

After the mess on the bridge, Sokolov’s safe house is an easy mark.

Corvo has to bypass more than a few arc pylons and a particularly poorly placed Wall of Light, as well as dodging several on-alert police. An unprepared man might have trouble, but the systems are vulnerable and not really ready for someone like Corvo. He saves himself some worry and ignores the fact that he’s going to have to get Sokolov back across the bridge in favor of ducking up into Sokolov’s greenhouse, at the top of the building.

The man is so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t realize Corvo is there until he’s been hit from behind. The scientist is weak, his struggles ineffective as Corvo knocks him out. He slumps to the ground, unconscious, and Corvo takes a moment to explore the greenhouse. No alarms are raised: the cure for the Weeper virus is a sensitive subject.

In here, it almost seems like a garden. Of course there are monitors, showing scrolling programs, neural networks generating solution after solution. He has augmented pieces—clearly isolated, but infected with the virus—connected to computers where his own programs attempt to end the effects. But around all of these familiar things Corvo is shocked by the verdant green plants. Real plants: ferns, flowers, small trees…things he can’t identify, plants with wide variegated leaves and plants with long jointed stems and more. There are plants in the rest of Dunwall, obviously, but never anything quite like this. The air in here is…better. Cleaner.

And in the back corner, locked in a cage, is a horror Corvo doesn’t know how to handle. A woman, heavily augmented, clearly infected with the Weeper virus. Her replaced arm is sparking; one of her augmented eyes rolls independent of any muscle movement. And when she moves she’s jerky, like a marionette, like she’s losing control of her own systems. She reaches out to him, a silent plea: there’s a scar on her throat in the same place his lies. They took her voice, too.

Would he have been a test subject for this, if he hadn’t broken out? Or was he meant for something else? How many more like them are there?

It takes just a moment and a quick execution of Devouring Swarm to break open the lock and yank open the door. They can’t speak to each other. They’re both physically silenced, and to connect his systems to hers would be effective suicide. Corvo can’t even afford to take off his mask and let her see his face, in case there are cameras present. But when he gestures to his own throat, to his hand, she nods in understanding. She staggers when she tries to stand and Corvo reflexively catches her.

Her still-functional eye shines with tears. She points at a computer, one with a physical keyboard; Corvo helps her over, letting her lean on him. She types her message with one shaky hand: _thank you_

_i can help you get out_ , Corvo replies.

_dont bother_

_why not_

_i dont feel well_

The Weeper must be finally eating its way into core systems. Into the critical structures that, if she’s anything like Corvo, were installed to keep her alive. A borrowed heart, augmented blood…even her brain. She won’t survive the night.

It makes him sick to leave her there, but she doesn’t want to go. And getting off the bridge with the unconscious Sokolov will be hard enough without an injured, dying civilian in tow. He helps her sit down in a comfortable chair among the plants. She smiles at him and closes her eyes. It’s as close to peace as she’ll get.

Corvo won’t find peace tonight. Possibly ever again. He’s sorely tempted to dump Sokolov off the bridge and let him be drowned in the Wrenhaven, be crushed by a tanker ship, be devoured by hagfish. But without Sokolov, Emily has no chance of ever waking up. So Corvo grits his teeth and creeps back across the bridge, slow as he can, using every shadow and every scrap of cover to get around the reinforced security. It’s one hell of a long trip. He has a lot of work cut out from him, and there’s a narrow escape or two from guards and dogs. Luckily, no one is stupid enough to chase a fugitive _into_ the Blackout District, even if he appears to be carrying a body.

It will only be later, Corvo hopes, that they realize that it’s Sokolov who’s gone missing. By that time, undertaking a search will be prohibitive. They have time. Emily has time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving slow today...sorry about that.

Sokolov is intensely unhappy when he wakes up in the Hounds Pits, shackled to the wall, disconnected forcefully from the rest of the city. He has no way to access anything outside of this network, which means he’s effectively trapped. Piero did a good job on that. Even if he tries, Sokolov won’t be making contact with OVERSEER any time soon.

And he’s even less happy when he realizes that Corvo is perfectly ready to physically beat information out of him, if he doesn’t talk.

“You realize that torture is ineffective during interrogations,” Pendleton points out, when Sokolov can’t hear them.

“I’ve been tortured,” Corvo says, turning a glare on the aristocrat. “It’s effective at a lot of things, even if it isn’t getting the truth out of people. And right now, I don’t give a damn about the truth. If I have to break every bone in his body and let Piero put him back together to make him help Emily, I will.”

Sometimes Corvo worries about what he’s becoming. But as he stands by in the operating garage and watches the two scientists working on Emily, he can’t make himself worry. Sokolov, though grudging, is ultimately the sort of person trying to help. His empathy is…nonexistent, really, since he sees humans as test subjects, but the challenge of bringing Emily back to something resembling normalcy is enough to keep him invested in what they’re doing.

The operation takes surprisingly little time. Afterward, Havelock escorts Sokolov away, to be interrogated about Burrows and money and all the other minutiae that Sokolov knows. They don’t ask Corvo to go along. He wouldn’t have, anyway.

Corvo sits next to Emily for a little while, holding her hand. She’s no longer broken in her silence and stillness, but rather looks as though she’s sleeping and dreaming peacefully. He feels, for the first time since he watched Jessamine die, at some degree of peace. It’s not enough, it will never be enough, because there’s more to do. Burrows is still out there, information has to be collected, OVERSEER has to be stopped. But Emily is here, safe and sound. For a little while, Corvo can rest.

“You can rest,” the Outsider says, an eerie echo of Corvo’s unsent thoughts.

Without looking away from Emily, Corvo shrugs. He opens his messaging program, somewhat reluctantly. He’s not in the mood to talk. _Happy with what you’ve got?_

“Sokolov will tell me what I need to know,” the Outsider says. He walks around the table, into view, and does a good pantomime of leaning his hip against a table. “You’ll be able to rest until we’ve got what we need.”

_Do they know about you?_

The Outsider scoffs. “Piero thinks that he’s built interrogation technology. Really it’s just a direct conduit into Sokolov’s mind, so that I can adequately access information.”

_You make a good puppetmaster_.

“Still thinking about what Daud said?”

Corvo sighs and looks up. _Do you expect me to avoid it? You used me._

The simulacrum shrugs. “So did Jessamine.”

_Don’t._

“There’s no right and no wrong in this world,” the Outsider says. “Only those we love and those we don’t. You love Emily. You loved Jessamine. Perhaps you’ll find another to love. And you’ll care for them, protect them, adore them, and forget all the rest. No one man can hold the world in his hands.”

_Jessamine…I tried to hold it for her._

The Outsider’s voice is oddly gentle. “How long will you mourn?”

Corvo lifts one shoulder in a vague shrug. _I knew her for thirty-five years. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop._

“You know her murderer’s face and name, and you know the man who gave him the means to kill her,” the Outsider says. “But you’ve given mercy to Daud. Have you forgiven me?”

_For what?_

“I never intended for Jessamine to be hurt. She was never a factor in any of my calculations, but I inadvertently set Daud on the path that would lead him to her. Without my technology he would never have gotten past you. I played a role in her demise.”

He hadn’t thought of it like that, but… _I never blamed you._ Corvo hopes that the Outsider can hear his sincerity. _Still don’t. I’ve never lied to myself about the kind of woman Jessamine was, or the kind of man I am. I’m not a good man. We’ve all got blood on our hands, one way or another. And you…for me, you’ve helped more than you’ve hurt._

“I have?”

Corvo meets the Outsider’s eyes, so intensely green in the near-monochrome of the operating garage. _You could have let me die. You could have let me rot in Coldridge, be shot, get caught by security systems, but you didn’t. And you helped me get Emily back. Could have told me sooner that you’re a physical…but that didn’t change how I think of you._

He isn’t sure what the expression on the Outsider’s face is, really. It’s surprised, pleased, and almost…frightened. “I’m glad,” he says. “This isn’t nearly over. I’ll continue to be your intelligence as long as you need.”

_And I’m happy to be your puppet._

“You aren’t my puppet,” the Outsider says. “That would imply I have strings attached to you.”

_You do. I don’t mind._

The Outsider sighs and shakes his head. “That’s an argument for another time. I’ll return to you again once I’ve sorted Sokolov out. I think in the meanwhile you have time for yourself. A rarity in these troubled times. And soon enough I do think I’ll have a new technology for you. Something you’ll enjoy…quite a lot.”

And then he’s gone. Corvo is alone except for Emily again. He looks down at her and feels a smile edging onto his face. It’s a strange sensation, to genuinely smile again after all this time. But he likes it.

 

***

 

They end up wanting his help to get information out of Sokolov.

“And we’d like him intact,” Havelock says.

“I’ll do my best,” Corvo says. He wonders what the Outsider is extracting from the man, from his internal memory and programs. It certainly won’t be anything like what the Loyalists want.

The two men stride side by side into the cellar of the Hounds Pits. After assisting in Emily’s rescue operation, the scientist has been locked—in a bitter twist of irony—in a cage. Corvo enjoys the sight.

Martin and Pendleton are standing by. Pendleton looks deeply uncomfortable; Martin looks stoic, though he gives Corvo an irritable look. The man was saved from likely execution. The least he could do would be to be grateful.

“What do you want?” Sokolov demands. “I’ve told you everything.”

“You haven’t,” Havelock says sternly. “All you’ve gone on about is your research.”

Sokolov throws up his hands. “That’s all that matters! Who holds the reins of the Kaldwin empire is unimportant as long as that money continues moving toward a cure!”

“Where is the money coming from?” Corvo asks. He steps past Havelock, looking into the cage at Sokolov. He’s not wearing his mask, so his face is visible. The scar on his throat where his voice was cut away is evident. Corvo hides nothing. He wants Sokolov to see, even if he won’t understand. “The trail ends with you. It goes back to Burrows; once, it went back to Jessamine. I know where Jessamine’s money came from. What about his?”

“Ask his bank accounts,” Sokolov says. “I’m sure that you have the technology.”

“We do. But we want to hear it from you,” Corvo says. He leans forward, resting his hands against the cage. “And you want to tell us.”

Sokolov shakes his head. “I’m only doing what’s right. Helping Dunwall to recover from the plague. And what are you doing here? Kidnapping scientists? Taking apart the structure of the city? You’ll be found eventually!”

“OVERSEER has blind spots,” Corvo says. It’s a chancy thing to say, but he does it anyway. “One of them is the Blackout District. I’m another.”

“Blind spots!” Sokolov scoffs. “It’s the panopticon! It sees all.”

Borrowed words resound from the speakers in Corvo’s false voice. “Panopticon means only that it can see all, not that it does see all. It has blind spots. You’re one of them, now.”

For a second, there’s actual fear in Sokolov’s face. There: Corvo has him. The fear that everyone in this world has, the fear of disconnection. It’s his weak spot. The point where he’s isolated, alone, unable to reach out to anyone else. But then it’s gone. “I’ll tell you nothing.”

“Fine,” Corvo says. He thinks of Emily, of the woman in the cage, of his own body, of the other test subjects Sokolov must have used. He brings up the program menu and, with a blink, targets Sokolov’s systems and executes Devouring Swarm.

It looks like he’s been infected with the Weeper virus. Sokolov staggers. Many of his augments aren’t as visible as Corvo’s, but Corvo watches him fall apart as everything in his head goes haywire. He stumbles and collapses, seizing, drooling, howling incomprehensibly, teeth rattling together. It’s the visual of the worst-case scenario of the Weeper virus.

Behind him Corvo hears Pendleton let out a startled cry and Martin swearing, but doesn’t move an inch. He waits until the seizures have subsided and Sokolov reboots himself, and then crouches down to look the scientist in the eye. “You want to do that again?”

“What was that?” Sokolov demands.

“A virus that temporarily shut you down,” Corvo says. He can’t modulate the volume on the voice he’s been given, but it’s somehow more frightening to hear it loudly than it would have been for him to whisper the words. “I can do worse. I can possess your systems. Might not find anything, the possession doesn’t last long…but the last time I used it I reprogrammed every Wall of Light on Kaldwin Bridge to only let me move through. Want to bet on what I could do to you?”

Sokolov stares at him, mouth working but no sound coming out.

Corvo waits for one beat, and then two. But Sokolov has been frightened into silence, and he needs a prod to get moving in the right direction. “Start talking,” he says. He looks at the Loyalists. This is their realm.

Martin recovers first. “Where is Burrows getting his funds?” he demands brusquely, striding over to the cage and looking down on Sokolov.

The scientist rubs at his face with both hands. “Danforth Holding Company,” he says. “The money comes out of the company, but I don’t know who’s putting it in and shifting it his way. I’m no banker! I only spend time on my work…”

“Who’s been your contact carrying the money?” Pendleton asks.

“Anonymous donations from the Company, regularly dropped in my accounts to pay for what I need.” Sokolov shrugs. “They all come from Burrows, I know that much. But I have no idea who’s sending him money to begin with, I promise.”

Corvo smiles. “Was that so hard?” he asks, and rises to his feet. He turns to the Loyalists, ignoring how they’re looking at him. Afraid? Angry? He doesn’t care. They need him, and at this point…he doesn’t need them. “I’ll be down in the garage with Emily, if you need me again.”


	12. Chapter 12

Piero accosts him in the garage. “I have new augments for you,” he says.

“Show me.”

Down in the garage, Piero presents his plans and programs. He calls it the “Blink” augmentation, something wholly new and untried. The Loyalists have given him the general go-ahead to perform the operation and install the new hardware and software on Corvo.

“I don’t know how I came up with this, but all tests and projections say that when this is complete you’ll be able to actually warp reality and teleport instantaneously short distances,” Piero explains, gesturing to the schematics on screen.

“Impressive,” the damn mechanical voice says. Corvo wants to cringe at the sound. He hates that voice with all his soul, he really does. But still, he’ll deal with it. The Outsider had promised miraculous powers. Apparently, the miracle is here. “Could have been useful on the bridge. Let’s get on with it.”

Preparation for the procedure is fairly quick. Corvo has no idea what the meticulously-placed pieces of the augmentation are all for, but there are a lot of them. “This will be a traumatic operation and one that will require serious recovery,” Piero warns. “You’ll have extensive internal modification.”

“It will be fine,” the voice that isn’t Corvo’s says. He stares up at the ceiling while Piero outlines the procedure. There are pieces to be installed across the whole of his body, in his chest, in his arms—the replaced and not-replaced—in his legs, his bones. Connections that will allow him to blink from one place to another with a gesture. And, of course, the software upgrades.

The medical assistant paralyzes Corvo from the neck down as Piero talks. Standard procedure, but deeply unnerving, considering the extent of these augmentations. He’s also numbed, so he can’t feel what’s happening; a small mercy. These augmentations, Corvo reminds himself, are necessary.  Even imperative. He has to have these abilities. And with these thoughts, Corvo thinks he’ll be all right.

And then Piero begins to crack open his chest.

Memories of Coldridge, of his heart being ripped from his chest, of his lungs becoming a snarl of fiber-optic cable, of his muscles and blood replaced, of his bones augmented with molten metal, surge over him in a sickening tide. He wants to scream. But he can’t. His voice is gone, gone, and no one can hear him screaming, and wouldn’t care if they did.

“Heart rate rising,” a gentle, mechanized voice warns. “Adrenaline levels rising.”

Piero pauses in the operation and squeezes Corvo’s shoulder with a bloody hand, in an attempt at comfort that makes Corvo’s skin crawl. “Knock him out,” he says to the assistant.

There’s no time to object.

He’s in a dark place when he wakes up, a place full of gentle wind and the song of whales. It’s peaceful, soothing. As if he’s floating underwater. The room is the operating garage, but empty; no blood on the tables, no pain. And the Outsider is sitting on the chair beside the table, watching.

“Everyone’s wrong about dreams,” the Outsider says. “You can access the virtual in sleep. It’s just a matter of finding the right technologies.”

Corvo looks at him. _You can work miracles. What is this, magic?_

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” the Outsider replies. “I’m a very good engineer and programmer.”

_You are that. Devouring Swarm scared Sokolov half to death._

The Outsider’s lips compress. “On that note. You do realize that I gave you those powers to use responsibly, yes?”

_He listened, didn’t he?_ Corvo raises his brows. _What are you so upset about?_

“I was interrogating his internal memory. You shut down his systems so thoroughly that you kicked me out of his system.”

Corvo can’t help it. The Outsider looks impossibly disgruntled, arms folded, glowering. He tries so hard to physically laugh, body shaking but silent even in a moment of delight. Finally he kicks his system to the speakers so the Outsider can hear his laughter.

When he calms a little, he looks at the Outsider with a smile. _At least you know it works now._

“Yes, well, that’s fine,” the Outsider snipes. “I could have lost hours of work.”

_Well, did you?_

“No.”

_Then there’s no harm done._

The Outsider sniffs. “I suppose not.”

For a little while, they’re both silent. Without the conversation happening, Corvo can’t help imagining the _butchery_ happening to his body outside this odd virtual dream, and it makes him shudder. He wants to scream, but something tells him he won’t get away with that, even in a dream. _Why did you bring me here? You could have just let me sleep._

The Outsider blinks at him slowly, deliberately. That doesn’t seem to be a standard part of his simulacrum’s programming; he only does it when he wants to. “You’ll be less terrified waking up if you spend time with me in the Void.”

_So I’ll be back on my feet faster. Pragmatic._

“Would it be impossible to believe that I’m doing this because I have a sense of compassion?”

_No. I didn’t expect it. But I believe it. You’re human, after all._

“Human,” the Outsider says, and Corvo catches a faint sigh. He shakes his head. “I’m keeping tabs on your operation, and it’s going very well. This Blink technology will allow you to perform some very interesting feats.”

Corvo imagine the mess on the bridge if he’d been able to teleport. _I imagine._ He listens to the ambience of the room. _Why the whale song?_

The chair creaks slightly as the Outsider moves. Artificial, but grounding. As though they’re really in the empty operating garage. “I find it soothing, personally.”

_It’s…pleasant._

“Good,” the Outsider says. Corvo looks at him and finds serene green eyes looking back. “I wish this procedure were less traumatic.”

_No avoiding it._

“Still. I’m deeply sorry for this. I…wish I could do more.”

Corvo feels so tired that his bones hurt. Or maybe that’s the numbing wearing off, and pain seeping into this virtual dream. _It’s nice to have company. Even if it’s a hacker with delusions of godhood._

A real smile, not the vague thing Corvo had seen before, appears on the Outsider’s face, his eyes lighting up. It occurs to Corvo, with the logic of a dream, that he’s…handsome. His usual stern expression is the cold beauty of an antique marble bust, but this is real. Genuine. “You said it yourself,” the Outsider says. “I can work miracles. Isn’t that godly?”

Corvo smiles back. _You said yourself that it’s only sufficiently advanced technology._

“I did, didn’t I,” the Outsider murmurs. His expression is warm, and Corvo strangely feels safe, protected. This space, wherever the Outsider’s brought him, is one where he can’t be touched by the outside world. “You should rest. So you can go out and perform your own miracles.”

 

***

 

It takes half a week of recovery, dozing in and out in his room at the top of the Hounds Pits, before Corvo is back to reasonable standards of physical health. He has no more dreams in the virtual world, which is more regrettable than he expected. He finds himself wondering about the Outsider frequently, and when he’s not thinking about that, he’s worrying about Emily. She’s still sleeping, but Piero assures Corvo that she’ll be all right, especially under Callista’s care.

“Callista is a good woman,” Piero says, perhaps a little misty-eyed, as he runs an interminably long system diagnostic on Corvo. Is he pining for her? Well, there’s always time for romance, even in the middle of a revolution. “She’s looking after Emily. I don’t think it will be long.”

“Good,” Corvo’s surrogate voice says. He stares at the ceiling and wonders what, exactly, Emily will think of him. Voiceless. Half replaced. Joined at the hip to a hacker who he’s never seen in person. Not the man she knew, not in the slightest.

He doesn’t really get the chance to play around with the Blink augmentations. By the time that he would be able to, the Loyalists are raring to go, to get him moving on this new mission to the Danforth Holding Company. Corvo doesn’t entirely mind: learning on the job is always something he’s enjoyed. It’s a risky business, when it could very well get him killed, but at this point everything is risky.

They brief him in the bar. Lydia wanders aimlessly, unable to simulate the performance of tasks and clearly bored by the whole thing. Cecelia perches at the bar, watching keenly; the Loyalists ignore both intelligences. Corvo can’t help but see them.

“We’ve done as much as we could,” Havelock says, bringing up files on a monitor. Corvo stares at them, columns of figures that he can’t understand. “Between the three of us, we’re well aware of a lot going on in Dunwall. But Danforth Holding Company has diverse assets and subsidiaries, and it has no ownership of any of our individual enterprises.”

Pendleton sighs. “I do wish my brothers hadn’t turned down their offer.”

“Tracking Burrows through it will require data we can’t access because we believe it’s behind physical barriers,” Martin says. He brings up his own data, a visual chain of his searches for the trail of the money. From Sokolov’s accounts into Burrows’ accounts and into the company…where the trail goes completely dark. “I was able to confirm that Danforth indeed is the source, or at least a stop on the way. But I don’t have the skills to get into the physical office.”

Corvo nods. “Which is where I come in.”

It’s common practice in Dunwall to use holding companies like this to transfer assets to family and friends. The Kaldwin name is tied up in hundreds of smaller businesses, and Emily’s fortune is made there, not in Kaldwin Enterprises itself. The key here is that most such companies also act as an effective veil for the questionably legal transactions. Corvo’s income was in that camp, given how Jessamine was using her own holding company to move money around. OVERSEER frequently overlooks these, because its attention is elsewhere, or because it has a need of whatever information is moving through these channels. “Legal” is an outdated term, really, but the veneer of decency is still necessary.

And now Burrows is moving money in this way, and they need Corvo to find it.

He gears up, weapons and mask in place. He’s rather excited about the idea of Blinking, all things considered; it’s going to be an interesting time of it to learn how to use that. Here’s to hoping that the Outsider didn’t miss a step and install something that’ll leave Corvo’s legs behind, or some such.

Corvo stops by the room where Emily sleeps. Piero’s working on installing a new arm, a better one that Corvo recognizes as the Outsider’s design, so that when she wakes up she won’t have the shock of seeing the bare bone structure they’d given her to begin with. “The same operating system you’re running,” Piero says. “She’ll be able to connect to you.”

That’s good and he’s glad. Corvo kisses her on the forehead before he leaves. Maybe she’ll have awakened by the time he returns. He would like that.

Havelock stops him on the way out the door. “One more thing,” he says. “Security will be tighter all over the city. Official news reports that the Weeper has finally broken out of the Blackout District into the rest of Dunwall.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Corvo says, fitting the mask over his face again. “Have a little faith in me, Admiral.”

It’s strange, but that mask is starting to feel more like his real face than the one he was born with.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> Turns out I messed up in the document when I was posting the last chapter.
> 
> Guess who _skipped_ an entire chapter.
> 
> I deleted the existing chapter and am posting the correct one in its place, _as well as_ replacing the chapter I already posted in its rightful place. 
> 
> Okay. I'm just kind of dying of anxiety and embarrassment right now, so...yeah. Let's get on with this.

In the grand scheme of Dunwall, the Danforth Holding Company is a small one. Its subsidiaries—Daiger & Dial, Velentzas, Brimly & Finch, Wentwell’s, the Rothwild Slaughterhouse, and so on—have little enough clout in the city. Still, it’s turning a tidy profit, if the stock exchange is to be believed. And of course they’re involved, like everyone else, in half a dozen dark pool exchanges, so their real value is not even listed where anyone can find it.

The offices are located in the same building as several others, on 131 Lackrow Boulevard. The Timsh Estate and Law Offices occupy the first floor, the Karl Reiser Co. Silvergraph camera manufacturers take the second, Lectromelt—a company specializing in the sale of security software—has the third, and finally the Danforth Holding Company has the fourth. It’s a prestigious place, with the Preston Club down the street and the skyscraper of the Dunwall Courier dominating this part of the city’s skyline. Corvo has to go carefully if he wants to stay unnoticed.

Samuel drives him again, and parks a block away. “You’re going to have to walk back, they need me to drive somewhere else,” he says. “Good luck up there.”

_Thanks._

“And be careful.” Samuel turns to look at Corvo, and Corvo pauses in the act of putting on the mask. “I might be a simple man but I’ve got my fair share of scars. Body and heart, you know. I’ve seen the kinds of things that people do, worst of it all.”

Corvo flinches. _I won’t hurt anyone if I can avoid it._

“It’s not anyone else I’m worried about,” Samuel says.

The faith that Samuel has in him instills a certain confidence. Corvo gives Samuel a little salute and a nod. Then he gets out of the taxi and heads for the offices.

He’s here at the close of the day, and that helps a little. No one takes notice of him slipping in a side door, a janitorial entrance, fairly disused. There are lawyers working late, in the Timsh office, but they’re easily avoided. They’re all too wired in—occupying the VR spaces where the white-collar types conduct their business—to notice a shadow slipping through their hallways. And these people aren’t a part of his mission. Corvo ignores them.

He breaks the lock on the flight of emergency steps. They’re old, unused, and worthless when everyone prefers elevators now, but he likes that they exist. There’s no security cameras, nothing to be alerted. In a fortunate turn of events, he can go right past the Karl Reiser Co. and Lectromelt offices and come out right on the floor of the Danforth Holding Company.

It’s very quiet, on this floor, and very dark with most of the lights out: the type of people who live here don’t usually actually work in the building. The offices are kept for the look of things. And, apparently, to hide physical tracks of data. It’s useful that, even today, the safest way to truly protect information is by locking it behind a physical key. The details of the most incriminating transactions will be somewhere in these offices, locked in a safe.

Unfortunately, that means Corvo has to search them all.

The floor is a loop. He starts where he finishes, which ideally would mean he could just walk in a circle until he finds what he’s looking for. This is not ideal, though: there are balconies and offices that adjoin. He searches each one, bypassing those which belong to employees lower in the company hierarchy and focusing on the people who would have access to Burrows’ information.

The information heist is going well, all things considered. Corvo makes it around the entire wing of the floor he initially entered and is about to enter the larger offices belonging to the owners of the Holding Company. He slips in the first door, but the office has nothing. As he approaches the door to the second, he realizes that the closed conference doors aren’t just closed. A sweep of light comes from under the doors and there’s a faint murmur of voices.

Corvo decides to look at this second office and then deal with the conference room. There’s nothing in this office, either, so he goes back out into the hallway.

And his timing couldn’t have been worse.

The door of the conference room opens and Corvo sees silhouettes exiting, chatting with each other. They’ll see him the second they look up, he’s in plain sight. So rather than running, Corvo focuses his attention on a point behind them, in the conference room, reaches for it, and—

— _pulls._

He’s behind the conference table, standing behind their backs.

He just Blinked.

Slowly, making no noise, Corvo sinks down out of sight behind the table. He can’t afford to be seen now, at all. If he is…it doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Did you see that?” one of the businessmen asks. “I thought there was someone…”

A woman scoffs. “It’s late, Geralt. We’d better go before you fall asleep on the boardroom table.”

Laughter comes from the others, and the conference room doors swing shut. Corvo stands up slowly, alone in the room. That worked. It worked. He can teleport. The Outsider wasn’t lying about the miracles. What else can Corvo do, if he has the technology?

He shakes off the speculation. No time for that. He might as well search the conference room while he’s here. There’s a safe behind a painting on the wall. Its lock is electronic, but disconnected from the building’s other systems. It’s the work of a moment to Possess the lock, get the combination, and open it without a hitch. Inside is drive after drive, each clearly packed full of information. Corvo really doesn’t have time to choose, so he just…sweeps all of them into his pockets and hopes the right information is on at least one.

He goes out the window, swinging down the side of the building and out into the night. The rain had abated for most of the day, and there had even been some meagre sun. A positively brilliant day, by the standards of Dunwall. But a storm is rolling in over the retaining wall, clouds boiling black, and Corvo thinks that he’d better hurry back before he’s trapped out in it.

 

***

 

Corvo makes it about halfway to the Hounds Pits when the storm breaks. It’s a hell of a storm even by Dunwall’s standards, huge, rolling with thunder, winds surging, lightning shimmering behind the clouds. Since he’s already drenched, Corvo doesn’t bother getting under cover. He just stands on a rooftop and watches.

It’s nights like these that Corvo remembers why he loves this city. For all its filth, for the plague and the singularity and the poverty, Dunwall is his home. He remembers Karnaca, with its clean air and wind turbines, the sunrises and the calm days, with fondness, but it’s these storms that hold his heart.

And then he sees a strange flicker in the sky. Corvo wrenches off his mask and stares up into the sky, at the boiling black clouds, and watches the leviathan descend. It’s as large as a skyscraper, but hanging in the sky, impossible. Beautiful. The shape of a whale, with its tail and long flippers, but of metal, with chains of lights running down its sides, sweeping in angular patterns like a circuit board. They shine in purple, on this whale.

Through the city echoes a melancholy song. Slow, eerie, filling the world as the leviathan slowly swims over the city. How they stay aloft is a mystery. One of them went down over Samara, when Corvo had only recently come to Dunwall, and he remembers the scramble to see its data, to understand what it carried. Corvo didn’t understand all of what had been said, only that whatever was embedded in the leviathan was incomprehensible, data coded so as to be impossible to understand.

“Not coded,” the Outsider says softly. Corvo doesn’t even flinch at his sudden appearance. “Only old. Old beyond words, older than the stones at the foundation of Dunwall. Archives from a people so long gone that their genetic codes never even entered a database.”

Corvo watches the whale gracefully rise and fall, and doesn’t reply. He looks to the side, at the Outsider, and sees him still, untouched by water. That’s how to tell he’s only a simulacrum. The rain doesn’t interact with him, and the double vision is painful on the eyes. The Outsider is watching the leviathan, too, green eyes tracking its movements closely.

“I have always wondered if the key is in the song.” The Outsider’s hands move a little, as if conducting the music. “If…we could understand what they’re saying. What they’ve left us.”

_What would you do, if you knew?_

There’s a long, heavy moment of silence. Below, all of Dunwall seems to have fallen still. It isn’t often that one of the leviathans comes so low. It isn’t often that the song is so clear. Everyone will have stopped, to look or to listen, if they can. The sound echoes off the buildings, the roof under Corvo’s feet thrumming with its power. Unknowing, or uncaring, of the effect it has, the whale slowly inscribes a circle in the storm.

“I would reply,” the Outsider says at last. “They have been seen as far north as Samara and south to Karnaca, and swimming away through the sky toward Pandyssia. And always they are alone…can you imagine how lonely they must be, singing to an audience that cannot understand?”

_Yes_.

For a little while they’re quiet again. Corvo sees that someone has redirected a spotlight onto the whale, casting reflections across its smooth belly. The light scatters and breaks over it, as though they’re looking down into water at it. The shape is beautiful, perfect, more perfect than a real whale in the ocean. Those whales haven’t been seen in a long time, now.

_Do you think they’re intelligent?_

“I do,” the Outsider says. “What is intelligence, Corvo? We once called it the human brain in a physical body, and then we began to make our computers so complicated that they could beat us in a game of chess or pretend to be a human. Programming is programming, whether it’s digital data or a sequence of neurons. You know that. It’s why we call them ‘intelligences’. Those whales…I can’t imagine what thoughts pass through their minds. And someday…someday I _will_ make contact.”

For a long time, Corvo and the Outsider stand on the rooftop and watch the leviathan floating in its slow dance over the city, until it finally swims upward and vanishes again into the clouds.

“Sokolov has tried and he has always failed. Brute force will not get into those ancient minds. And he and I aren’t the only ones chasing their secrets. You know, the whales are how I met Daud,” the Outsider says, after a while, when the only sounds are the traffic and chaotic noise of the city below, starting again after their brief step out of time. “He wants them, too, to see what they carry. I made overtures, we worked together for a while. He may still change everything, if he manages to get in.”

_And that’s why they’re called—_

“—the Whalers, yes.” The Outsider smiles, just a hint, and Corvo helplessly smiles back. It’s so rare to be happy in these times, and this seems like an occasion that ought to be celebrated. “Young, disaffected hackers, all of them. Angry at the world and willing to fight for what they want. Daud thinks the key to the singularity is in the leviathans.”

_Do you think so?_

“I think the key to the singularity lies in us,” the Outsider says, turning to face Corvo fully. One slim digital hand comes to rest on Corvo’s chest, over his mechanically-beating heart. “In you.”

The not-contact is strange. It’s been so long since he had a gentle touch that Corvo’s nerves are screaming, even if there’s no actual sensation. Corvo rests his hand in the same spot, the visuals of their hands overlapping. He sends no messages, just waits. The Outsider likes to talk; with what he’d said earlier, about the whales, it makes Corvo wonder how lonely the man behind the simulacrum is.

“You are a spark,” the Outsider says. “You are the first man I have found who is willing not only to accept the power I can offer, but to use it for good ends. Who will use it, not for his own gain, but for the gain of others. In this city, this selfish hell we have named Dunwall, in this corporate empire that spans these Isles, you are the only man I have found with true good in his heart. And that…I can’t tell you how much that means. How important you truly are.”

_It’s good to know Dunwall needs me_.

The Outsider shakes his head. “You are important to me. I need you, Corvo.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _stands on a chair ___
> 
> __IF YOU'RE EXPECTING NEW CONTENT, GO BACK AND REREAD CHAPTER 13. I MADE A POSTING ERROR AND MOST OF YOU WILL HAVE ALREADY READ THIS ONE. THANK YOU, AND BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED FIC._ _

Corvo comes into the Hounds Pits to find no one around except Lydia and Cecelia. _Where are all the rest?_ he asks, foregoing the external voice. They’ll hear him well enough.

“Off doing who knows what,” Cecelia says. She sniffs. “Not like they care about the intelligences enough to tell us anything, even though we’re part of this too and we’re in as much trouble if OVERSEER comes calling…”

“Cecelia,” Lydia reprimands. She turns to Corvo. “You haven’t been around much. Come sit down and have a drink, or something.”

Corvo comes and sits down at the bar, easily pulling off his mask and hanging it on his belt. Why not? He’s not doing much else, at the moment. _Your best. I think that mission was an unqualified success._

Lydia smiles. A drink pours itself, the mechanized process easily ignored as Lydia easily slides into place and makes it look as though she herself is handing Corvo the glass. “Good. It’ll be nice when this is over and you can sit down for a while.”

 _I never sit down_. Corvo takes a sip of the drink. He pauses, savoring it: this is the real thing, well-brewed and expensive. Clearly, the Loyalists won’t be giving up their luxuries, even in the Blackout District. _Rest is for people who aren’t corporate spies._

For a little while it’s silent. Lydia goes back to her pantomime of tasks; Cecelia swings her feet; Corvo sips his drink. The lights of the bar flicker a little, glinting off the shining tabletops. Music, pop stuff about three years out of date, sings softly in the background about one-night true love and meaningless victory. It seems like the same song over and over again, but that just makes it into a soothing white noise. Rain hammers at the windows. On the screens, the doubles of Lydia and Cecelia are visible next to Corvo. They seem to be physically there. It’s nice to see them, to have some real company.

“You’re not a wetworker, are you?” Cecelia asks abruptly. “You don’t kill people?”

_No._

She turns on the barstool, though the stool doesn’t turn with her. “I like that. You’re a pretty good man, you know? Don’t snoop on people like Piero does on Callista, don’t hurt people like Havelock does, talk to us like we’re real…”

Corvo rests his elbows on the bar, watching her. He’s got no idea how old Cecelia really is, but she still looks barely as old as Emily. _You are real._

“No, we’re intelligences,” Lydia says stiffly. She turns away, so he can’t see her face anymore, as if she’s ashamed. “Virtual isn’t real.”

_It is to me._

“That’s why I like you,” Cecelia says. “More people should have eyes like yours, you know? Might change the way they see the world, really change it.”

“Stop it,” Lydia says. Her voice is sharp. She looks over her shoulder at the two of them at the bar, hands in fists on the counter. “We aren’t real, and pretending that we are is stupid. Only real people can change things. We can’t do either thing! We’re just programs!”

He looks at Lydia for a long moment. _Programming is programming, whether it’s digital data or a sequence of neurons. It’s just different. You change things, you know? You two more than some physical people I know. And you’re better than most of the physicals I know, too._

Lydia holds his gaze for a long moment before she finally softens, shoulders slumping a little. “I suppose you’re right,” she allows. “It’s just frustrating. The only people we ever see are the other men, and they certainly don’t treat us well…”

“We’ll get out of this,” Cecelia says firmly. “And the Hounds Pits will be better than it ever was, once Emily’s back in charge!”

Her optimism, and the pile of information in Corvo’s pockets, makes him smile. He raises his half-empty glass. _To the future._

“To the future,” Lydia echoes wryly, and Cecelia laughs. Corvo thinks for a moment that there’s a fourth person reflected in the mirror behind the bar—a pale shadow with black hair and green eyes—and then he’s gone.

The door of the bar hisses open and the three Loyalists step inside, shaking off the rain. “What a storm!” Pendleton exclaims, shrugging off his coat.

“Hell of a thing,” Havelock says, shaking his head. “The wall won’t be letting many ships in tonight, I think.”

“Not as if it will do you any damage, not with what you’ve been bringing in,” Pendleton says jovially. “How about that iron from Fraeport?”

Martin’s eyes fix on Corvo and he smiles thinly. “Back already,” he says.

Cecelia slides off her seat and makes for the door as the Loyalists crowd around. Corvo watches her go with something like sadness. She really is just a girl, even if she’s been programmed to always be particularly young. She deserves better.

“Did you find it?”

With a sigh, Corvo kicks his voice to the speakers. “Yes,” his not-voice says. “At least, if it’s on one of these drives.”

He dumps the entire pile on the counter and they splash out, rattling on the bar top. Pendleton gaps and Havelock actually claps Corvo on the back. “Now that’s data!” Martin says, with a savage grin.

“Real headway!” Pendleton says.

Havelock seems about to speak when the door to the stairs opens and Callista hurries out, eyes wide and smile bright. “Corvo!” she says. “Emily—she’s awake!”

He’s on his feet in a second, pushing through the Loyalists. “Is she—”

“In perfect shape,” Callista says, grabbing him by the hand. “And she’s asking for you!”

 

***

 

The room is still dark, lights turned down low, when Callista pushes the door open. Corvo steps past her, looking at the shape on the bed. He feels an agonizingly long moment of panic, and then his system connects to hers.

_Emily?_

“Corvo?” Emily sits up, staring up at him. “I thought…”

He sits down in the chair beside her and takes her hand. _They didn’t tell you?_

Emily shakes her head. Her eyes are big and dark in her wan face. “I thought you’d still be injured,” she confesses. “Piero didn’t explain much except you were alive and I really just woke up, I don’t remember…anything…”

 _You’re in the Hounds Pits Pub, the Blackout District,_ Corvo informs her. _You’ve been disconnected from all other systems to keep you out of OVERSEER’s vision. All the augments they installed on you have been swept and removed, where they could be pulled…_

“Why are you just messaging me?” Emily demands.

In answer, Corvo tilts his head back a little, letting her see the scar on his throat.

She gasps and reaches out, cold metal fingers brushing over it. “I didn’t know…”

_It’s no problem as long as I’m around people I can connect to._

“In practice that’s just me,” Emily says. She’s too smart for her own good. “What operating system am I running, if not OVERSEER? It’s…so smooth. Good speed. Are you running the same thing?”

_I am. It’s one hell of a system._

Emily flexes her augmented fingers. “I don’t love that they hacked off my arm without asking,” she says, with a faint tremor in her voice, “but this is a nice arm. Runs like an absolute dream.”

Corvo holds her hand tight. _You remember what happened to your mother?_

She nods, still staring at her hand. “I don’t want to. What else do you know?”

_Hiram Burrows had her killed, you kidnapped, and me sent to Coldridge._

Emily’s face pales. “…Burrows?”

Corvo nods slowly. _We don’t have a motive._

She scoffs, hands bunching the blanket in her lap. “Don’t…it was money, it’s always money, it always is. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me, though.”

_He was going to use you. The modifications moved you toward being used as an automaton, I’m guessing that I was moving toward the same fate._

There’s a long moment of quiet broken only by the sharp rumble of thunder overhead, and—distantly—the music from the bar downstairs.

Finally, Corvo goes on. _It’s not all bad news, you know. The Loyalists want to get you back in charge of the company, get it out of Burrows’ hands. I’ve been doing things toward that end since they broke me out. Including rescuing you._

“I might remember that,” Emily admits. “There was some kind of…disruption in the system. And then I was out again, but it felt like something changed.”

_I’m just glad you’re awake again._

It looks as if she might cry. “The only thing I could think,” she starts, and takes a gulp of air before going on, her voice wobbling, “the only thing, whenever I woke up, was how much I wanted you there.”

Corvo moves to the bed and pulls her into a hug. There’s not much he can say to help now, nothing he can really change. This is their reality now. At least Emily still has her voice, her mind. It could have been so much worse.

At some point, Corvo thinks, he’s going to have to tell the Outsider that he needs to show up to Emily and not pretend to be an intelligence. The deception has no need. It’ll only scare her or make her angry, and they can’t afford that right now, if ever. He suspects that Emily won’t be sitting by and taking this casually, letting the Loyalists and Corvo handle things: she’s every bit her mother’s daughter and she won’t be taking no for an answer. Corvo is about to have a very headstrong, smart, furious partner in literal crime. On the one hand he’s excited, on the other he’s fully aware that it will only work if they manage to work together in all possible ways. And that includes the third partner, the Outsider.

For now, though, he has a very scared daughter crying on his shoulder, mourning for a lost life and for all the things they’ll never be able to get back. Corvo just wants to hold her and take his turn at mourning properly.

So he does.


	15. Chapter 15

It’s the next day that the Outsider appears with intent to introduce himself to Emily. Corvo hauls him aside first, though, to give some direction. _You can’t just pretend to be her intelligence._

The Outsider watches Corvo, pacing around the room. “Why not?”

Corvo sighs. Is common compassion not enough? _Because she’s much smarter than me, she’ll catch on, and you’ll be lucky if she doesn’t try to trace you back and find you. She’s wary right now._

“Anyone would be,” the Outsider says. He shrugs. “As you wish. We’ll see what happens.”

As it turns out, Emily’s suspicions are such that she actually throws a glass at the Outsider’s head when he appears. It sails straight through him to smash against the wall. Corvo restrains a smug I-told-you-so, contenting himself with a pointed look at the Outsider. “Who the hell are you!?” Emily demands.

Explanations take a little bit of time. When the Outsider begins to ramble on, Corvo cuts him off to provide a more succinct explanation. While Corvo likes to listen to the Outsider talk, Emily has much less patience in these matters. She just wants to get to the point: an admirable quality, but one that both Corvo and Jessamine had tried to temper, lest their impetuous daughter get herself into trouble. Right now, though, far from wanting her to stop, Corvo is really enjoying watching the Outsider be thrown off his usual game by Emily. It’s fun.

When the explanations are over, Emily folds her arms. “Great. So you’re a hacker and you managed to convince Corvo you’re trustworthy. What are you using us for?”

“My own ends,” the Outsider says coolly. “But they align with yours. I can offer you augments like those my other men have, and with them you can strike back at Burrows and reclaim your crown.”

Emily’s eyes are sharp. “Other men? Who else have you talked to like us?”

“A woman, a long time ago. The one you know as Granny Rags. Daud. Your mother’s sister Delilah, although that went wrong and I doubt anyone will particularly miss her…a boy with no name. And Corvo, and now…you.” The Outsider pauses. “Once I considered Teague Martin, but…”

“No,” Emily says, echoed by Corvo. They exchange a look and Corvo smiles at her.

“There are many others I’ve at least touched, if not given gifts to,” the Outsider says. “Piero, of course, I’m linked to him. And once upon a time I crossed paths with Esmond Roseburrow.”

Emily furrows her brow. “Who’s he?”

_Before your time._ Corvo folds his arms, leaning back in his chair. _Some programmer, made big advancements in artificial intelligence that essentially made OVERSEER, about fifty years ago. Before my time too, I guess…I don’t remember a time without the singularity. It all changed overnight. Big news, when Roseburrow shot himself two years ago, just before the Weeper appeared. No one knew why._

“I do,” the Outsider says, expression unreadable. Emily and Corvo both turn to him with identical looks of horror on their faces and he shakes his head. “I didn’t encourage the suicide. But he explained his reasons to me. He mentored Sokolov, and men like him, and encouraged OVERSEER’s growth with the intent to make something better of the world. A unified system was supposed to create structure in the Isles, to give all systems a central place to rest, an overarching control that would allow synergy never seen before. It would have reduced poverty, saved lives, advanced the world.”

_Instead we got this._

The Outsider nods minutely. “Roseburrow was the one who told me that OVERSEER created the plague and explained its intent. It used his programs, his directives, to make the decisions. He never forgave himself.” He folds his arms and looks off into space. “He disconnected himself from every system, wiped all his files, and with one bullet destroyed his entire legacy.”

That last makes them all fall silent. The tragedy of Esmond Roseburrow seems large, in this small moment. How many men, Corvo wonders, have done things for the greater good and discovered only later that they’ve created a monster?

Is he one of those men?

 

***

 

Corvo and Emily meet with the Loyalists in the bar. Corvo is aware of Lydia and Cecelia watching in the background, and that even Wallace has joined them for this one. The other Loyalists shake Emily’s hand heartily and offer their sincerest congratulations, which Emily accepts with the inscrutable smile of an empress. She doesn’t make a single promise or accept a single favor except to hint that they’ll be rewarded for this, and Corvo knows then that no matter what happens Emily will be all right in the end.

“Martin has traced back the money,” Pendleton says, yielding the floor to the programmer.

The screens of the bar flare with sudden information. Emily’s noise of surprise means that her eyes, too, are able to see the three-dimensional representation of the data that the other physical people in the room lack. Corvo watches the windows turn in space, resolving themselves to show every possible angle of the situation.

“The money leads back to the Boyle Family,” Martin says, gesturing to a specific series of slides that demonstrate his points, floating up in sequence. “Three sisters, one of whom came into possession of her late husband’s money. All three of them are joint holders of the family accounts. Somewhere is the evidence of exactly which one sent the money, but I can’t get that from this data. Sokolov’s body of artwork confirms it: he has a painting of her, but it only shows the woman from behind, and given the style of the painting matching her dimensions to photographs is a fairly hopeless endeavor.”

Pendleton’s brow is furrowed. “Finding her is important, because without her financial support Burrows’ hold on the company will deteriorate, making it easier to displace him when the moment comes for the proper takeover.” He pauses, taking a sip of his drink. “Emily needs every advantage.”

Havelock purses his lips thoughtfully, drumming his fingers on the bar. “Sokolov mentioned a ball—it’s the event of the season, the Boyle party. And this year’s to be a masquerade. Held in about a week, so we’re on a fairly strict time limit. Identifying the sister should be easy for a masked man, eh?”

“I don’t think sending me in half-cocked is a good idea,” Corvo’s surrogate voice says. “A misidentification could be deadly.”

“Right,” Emily says, raising her chin defiantly. “She’d have to be close to Burrows. Someone in this city will know which sister is closest, and if it’s anyone it’s a reporter. Let me look into it.”

The bar explodes into noise. Corvo doesn’t bother shouting, he just gives Emily a hard look which she returns angrily. The four Loyalists are shouting over top of each other, the intelligences have dived into a discussion of their own, and in the background—Corvo quite clearly sees the Outsider loitering in one of the booths, watching keenly. Of course.

 “Shut _up_!” Emily finally shouts, slamming her fist on the bar. “Look. You threw Corvo right into the thick of it, sent him right after Campbell when he only just got out of prison. I’m just going to the Dunwall Courier offices to dig around, and that’s easy. I’m not unfamiliar with this, Corvo taught me.”

“I did,” Corvo says with a shrug when Pendleton turns a gimlet eye on him. “There’s no reason that a businesswoman shouldn’t know the ins and outs of conducting corporate espionage. Emily should go. I’m becoming too noticeable. And who will expect Emily Kaldwin to be the one to search for information herself?”

Emily looks at him with a beatific smile and Corvo puts a hand on her shoulder. They head for the operating garage so Piero can finish installing augments and can get her the weapons and gear she needs. Emily’s strong, fast, and smart, and besides, she’ll have the Outsider on her side. He has every confidence in her.

Still, he can’t suppress a flare of worry as she pulls up a veil over her lower face and a hood over her head. She steps out into the rain, just as he had mere weeks ago, into the deadly neon streets. Down the road, on the corner, Samuel’s taxi is idling. The old driver will take Emily where she needs to go.

It shouldn’t feel so awful, letting her go alone, but…

“Don’t worry,” the Outsider says, appearing in the doorway of the garage. He smiles. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

And then they’re both gone.


	16. Chapter 16

For the first time since Coldridge, Corvo has _downtime_.

He has no idea what to do with it.

The Loyalists have no interest in spending time in the Hounds Pits when they don’t have to be there. Corvo’s not sure where Martin went, only that he did; Callista is going home to see about her uncle Geoff. Havelock and Pendleton are men with businesses, the need to actually take action in the outside world, and have to be seen there to avoid attracting suspicion. As for Piero and Sokolov—they’re deeply engaged in their own scientific pursuits, a combative partnership of simmering mutual dislike, and not to be disturbed. And of course Samuel is gone, driving Emily to her destination.

This leaves Corvo alone for a much longer time than he’s been since Coldridge. At first, he doesn’t mind: in some ways, it’s nice to have a moment to himself, while he’s not recuperating from some hellish augmentation procedure. He lies on his bed in the attic and listens to music, just staring at the cracked ceiling tiles and vaguely daydreaming. There’s time for a little working out, healthy exercise, a leisurely thing that lets him stretch out some very angry and tense muscles. Augments can’t fight off everything, unless one replaces one’s entire body.

But, all the same, he runs out of things to do very soon. Corvo has spent his whole life in motion, really, and he’s actually bad at having downtime. He’s never been one for hobbies, such as they were. He wasn’t a great collector, or a poet, or a reader. In his younger days he’d been an athlete, recreationally, but after he took on a more prominent role as Jessamine’s security chief he had less time for that. He isn’t one for virtual reality or other kinds of entertainment.

No small shock, then, that Corvo eventually ends up hooked into every system in the Hounds Pits, lying on his bed, absently digging through the programs for the hell of it.

He does know what he’s doing, though he’s no professional: he has to be able to recognize file types, specific instructions, and so on. It’s part and parcel of security duties, and Corvo was always a hands-on security man. Really this is all curiosity. He discovers that, by some small glitch, the music program for the bar is supposed to shuffle through a hundred songs and is trapped in a loop of twenty-five songs. Fixing that requires toying with the system for half an hour, experimenting until he’s sure that they’ll now actually have some variety downstairs.

It’s funny, because holographic technology is still largely in its infancy, and very expensive. To view programs and virtual information in the physical world, before, Corvo had always had to wear the usual augmented-reality glasses or lenses that everyone has to wear. But with these eyes—the Outsider’s eyes, presumably—he can see the world without them. The data he swims through appears around him, above him, in great swirling storms like the waves that break on the retaining wall. It’s beautiful, and it’s hard to believe that it’s not physical.

Corvo takes the time to peruse the security footage, accelerating it so he can see the tableau of everything that’s happened in the last weeks. When he’s sure that he’s seen everything of note, he moves on to engaging with the records of the bar. That’s interesting reading, as far as Corvo is concerned, a narrative formed of bills and receipts and deliveries and paychecks.

He’s just started to really put together a picture when Wallace, the security intelligence, the only one with whom he hasn’t interacted much, appears without warning. “Sir, we have a problem.”

Corvo dismisses everything and sits up, looking at Wallace. _What is it?_

“There’s an intruder.”

Before he thinks about it Corvo is off the bed, snatching up sword and pistol. _Who?_

“Unidentified. Not a Weeper,” Wallace says. “Approximately one-hundred and seventy-eight inches, weight and secondary sex characteristics unknown due to concealing dress. Dazzle style prevents accurate facial recognition, but my facial recognition banks are small anyway and it’s highly probable that I wouldn’t recognize them no matter what. Bypassed the open door of the operating garage, currently climbing for the second floor from the back of the pub.”

_Thanks_. Corvo nods at Wallace. _Keep me posted if more try to get in. And tell Piero and Sokolov to put their heads down._

Chances are good, Corvo thinks as he ducks out of the room with a silent tread, that this is just a random happenstance. Some idiot looter came for this because the pub is a bright open target, ignored by everyone in power simply by virtue of being in the Blackout District. It’s got signs of life, functional power, shelter from the rain. A target anyone would be happy to take. They’re lucky this didn’t happen sooner, really. Corvo makes a mental note that they should probably get Sokolov to construct them a Wall of Light or two, just in case of future intruders.

The intruder is making no real effort to be quiet. They’re in the bar, behind it, in fact—confirming for Corvo that this isn’t someone sent by OVERSEER. No, this is just bad luck. Or good luck, as the case may be, since Corvo doesn’t have to lie around being bored anymore.

He slips across the room while the intruder isn’t looking, moving cautious and quiet. No lethal force should be necessary. A good old-fashioned knockout will suffice. Before the would-be thief even knows Corvo is there, he’s vaulted over the bar and thrown a chokehold around the intruder. That’s all there is to the struggle. Less than two minutes and all’s well.

Corvo evicts the thief, leaving them in a nice dry building three blocks away, and locks up the avenue of entry. He does a full sweep of the perimeter, to check and confirm that there’s no one else to cause problems. When he doesn’t turn anyone up, he returns to the pub.

_Thanks for the warning._ Corvo smiles at Wallace as he heads for the stairs, deciding that a shower might actually be nice.

“Of course, sir,” Wallace says. He pauses, an odd expression on his face. “I’m not entirely used to being thanked for my programmed services.”

_Then get used to it while I’m around._ For half a second, Corvo contemplates clapping Wallace on the shoulder, and then realizes how idiotic they’d both look. _You do most of the heavy lifting on security. We should all be grateful._

Wallace sounds a touch stiff. “Mr. Pendleton typically is not.”

Corvo suddenly wants to deck Pendleton. _You’re a good man, Wallace. Deserve more credit than you’re getting._

_***_

 

Two days, in full, pass before Emily returns. Corvo is only sure she’s all right because he gets the sense that the Outsider would come and let him know if something had happened to her. As it is, though, he’s still deeply worried. He couldn’t handle something happening to her now that he’s only just found her again.

Emily comes back flush with success. Arm in arm with Samuel, she sweeps into the bar laughing over her victory. “We have the name!” she crows, when Corvo turns from where he sits at the bar chatting with Lydia.

“Oh?” Lydia asks, leaning her elbows on the bar.

“Waverly Boyle,” Emily says, swinging into a seat. Samuel sits down sedately beside her and Emily leans comfortably on his shoulder. The old taxi driver smiles at that, Corvo sees. Emily smiles brightly at Lydia. “Found out from a very angry reporter at the Courier, got censured over and over for publishing criticism of the singularity. She agreed to meet with me, but I had to walk to the location and ended up getting chased by some very determined police…anyway, that’s your target.”

Corvo, standing behind Emily, hugs her. _Well done._

“Thanks,” Emily says, tilting her head to look up at him.

_Four days until the party._ Corvo looks around at the bar. Strangely, none of the leaders of the conspiracy are present. It’s Lydia and Cecelia and Samuel, and he sees Wallace come in the door. It’s just them, the people supporting the conspiracy from the bottom up. Fitting. _I’ll ask all of you. Miss Boyle is obviously a roadblock and we need her out of our way. I think our leaders would prefer me to directly eliminate her, but I don’t know._

“I don’t like the idea of murder,” Samuel says. He studies Corvo with surprisingly sharp eyes.

“Is there another way?” Cecelia asks. “Couldn’t you find some other way, persuade her not to give him money anymore?”

“Doubtful,” Lydia says. “You know how people who have money are.”

Emily raises her hand. “I promise not to be that way once I get the company back.”

Lydia laughs. “Make all the promises you want, but I won’t believe you until you move me right into Dunwall Tower with you.”

“All right, I will,” Emily says, tossing her head. She looks just like her mother, when she does that, but instead of feeling agony at the thought Corvo feels a bit of an ache surrounded by a swell of happiness. Jessamine would be proud of what Emily is becoming.

“If I might offer a suggestion,” Wallace says, “information is your safest option. Perhaps Miss Kaldwin might do some work on that, and contact you as you go through the party?”

“Good idea, Wallace, but how exactly are they supposed to talk when they’re on two separate sides of the city?” Cecelia asks dryly.

Corvo exchanges a look with Emily. He shrugs. _We’ll manage, somehow._

Samuel’s watching them again, as if he knows something. And perhaps he does: old men always seem to know the most about all the comings and goings of the city. They’ve become rumor themselves, so it follows that they know all the rumors to begin with. Besides, the Outsider’s attention is not exclusive. It wouldn’t shock Corvo if the Outsider has a habit of showing up in the back seat of Samuel’s taxi, monologuing and moodily looking out the windows.

But perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.

_I’ll inform the Loyalists._ Corvo nods to all of them. _Waverly will survive the night, I guarantee it._


	17. Chapter 17

A stolen invitation is all it takes to get in.

The Boyle party is a strange place, otherworldly. It hums and screams and throbs with music, loud and pounding. Anonymity is the thing, and so in a twist of stupidity and bad irony, when Corvo is asked to sign his name—not with a retinal scan or a fingerprint or some other foolproof method—he signs his own name.

His mask doesn't look out of place tonight. Tonight, the elite of Dunwall will forget their status and live in the world of the common man, the world without a face. Men wear outrageous wigs, styled in sharp color-blocked geometries; women have flipped their faces upside down with makeup. They throng under the strobing white lights, dancing, high on the night and the atmosphere.

It's only the latest technology that allows the most realistic holograms to be projected for all to see, and the Boyle sisters are wealthy beyond dreams. Of course they have dancers, in midair, above the guests, spinning and twisting in impossible ways, unbound by gravity. Confetti—obviously made by only the best at Caporet Paperworks—falls endlessly, a tumbling fall of delicate rarity crushed under the careless feet of the dancers.

The wine isn't ordinary: it's been spiked with chemicals to glimmer and glow like the cheap street drinks, drinks that are made in bathtub stills and can poison a man or even kill him if he buys from the wrong dealer. Tonight the rich pretend to be poor, drinking their rare vintages like the common crowd drinks cancer in a glass. And it's beautiful.

Corvo steps into the crowd without hesitation. He understands these people; none of them are threats to him at all. He may not know the faces beneath the masks, but he knows the type. They were once Jessamine’s peers. Now he hopes that Emily will have a better lot.

Around him bodies, masked and hooded, twist and gyrate. Overhead the graceful holograms perform antique ballroom dances; down on the floor the guests twist and grind against each other. How Corvo will find Waverly Boyle in this mass is beyond him, but he will. It will only take perseverance and the night won’t last forever. At the last attempt, he’ll simply find a place to hide and wait for it all to end, and make his move then.

He moves through the crowd as one of them, looking, always looking. None of this interests him, not the people in virtual-reality stupors, not the people using recreational viruses to shock their systems and put themselves on a high for a while, not the people all but ripping off their clothes. The debauchery on display here is not Corvo’s interest.

The three Boyle sisters are in attendance tonight. One wears black, one wears white, and one wears red. Each is in a beautiful baroque style, according to the papers; the one who guesses their identities wins a grand prize. For Corvo, that grand prize looks like getting money away from Burrows and back to Emily, in whose hands it belongs.

A dancer appears out of the crowd, in a blank white mask, mouthless. The eyes are invisible behind the holes as the dancer offers a hand to Corvo. Corvo shakes his head, but the dancer prowls around him, sliding behind his shoulder. Corvo turns, following, perhaps reaching out, and as they move realizes he's accidentally taken up the offer of the dance. His partner never touches him once, skin-tight white suit flickering strangely in the light. They circle around each other, reaching, reaching and never quite touching. No one around them takes any notice.

It's like dancing with a ghost, Corvo thinks.

He follows, entranced, as his partner slips through the crowd, weaving between dancers. In a sea of black and neon, the white seems brilliant, untarnished, impossible. The dancer never stops, only casting a look over a shoulder at Corvo, as if to see if he's still following. Corvo is. Something about this dancer…

And then his partner is gone, and he’s standing at the edge of the crowd, at the base of a flight of steps. There’s a Wall of Light at the top, blocking the way, and Corvo realizes at once what the dancer brought him to, intentionally or not. If he can get up there, he’ll enter the Boyle sisters’ private wing, and perhaps there find some clue to their identity.

He just has to get up that open flight of steps unseen.

That, as it turns out, is no more difficult than falling in line with a couple of authorized guests seeking a room for a more private turn of events; they don’t pay him any mind at all. At the top of the stairs, rather than worry about rewiring to admit his .gff file, he Blinks through the Wall of Light. There, it’s a burst of Devouring Swarm and the security systems are off long enough that Corvo can duck down the hall and out of sight. As usual, private areas in big houses tend to be less heavily surveilled, or at least find their surveillance more subtle than usual. He’s less like to raise an open alarm here—and, given the number of guests in the mansion tonight whose .gff files are authorized for the Walls of Light, no one will really see anything amiss about his presence on any security feeds.

Now, it’s just time to search for information on which woman is Waverly Boyle.

 

***

 

Upstairs it’s very quiet, very still. The music still pounds against the floor, but it’s muffled. He can’t hear as much. Which is why, when his heart stutters and his ears ring, he knows he’s close to something interesting.

The tracking signal leads him to a door into an unremarkable dark room, a disused intelligence management space lit only by the faint bluelight of monitors. He opens the door and stops, staring. In the middle of the room the dancer, the one in white, is waiting.

Before Corvo can say a word, the dancer pulls off the mask. "Hello, Corvo," the Outsider says with a faint smile.

_You're the ghost?_

"I've never been to a party like this before," the Outsider muses. "What better escort than you?"

_I’m terrible at parties._ Corvo shuts the door and crosses the room to one of the monitors, which is blinking a message. Yes: a program upgrade to Devouring Swarm. He hardware-connects and begins the download. _This looks nice._

The Outsider stands by his side, dressed as he usually is again. “It will serve,” he says. “A greater impact on a wider area of a system and fortified for a longer blackout. It should also be more effective on Tallboys. I have to say, I’m surprised that you keep using this one.”

Corvo shrugs, turning to face his companion as the update slowly installs. _I haven’t found much use for possessing systems. And isn’t it dangerous for you to pull this stunt in the middle of a party?_

“Risky, not dangerous,” the Outsider corrects. “OVERSEER will never know that I was here. I’m in the systems easily, no need for concern.”

_How did you get in?_

“Our whole world is built on one framework, one processor,” the Outsider says. He traces the numbers etched on the heel of Corvo’s hand: 8086. “It’s backwards-compatible. Every program made after this thing was introduced uses the same architecture, which means that everything old and everything new can be run together. Universal standard. It’s merely an instruction set, telling your software how to communicate with the hardware.”

_And you gave this to me._

The Outsider looks up at Corvo. “No, I didn’t,” he says. “I designed your arm, yes, and the software that manages it. But the processor? OVERSEER installed that for us already. It uses the right architecture. I can use the same assembly commands that it uses, the same mnemonic. We use one programming language. Obviously this is all simplified, but…it will serve.”

_Then how did you get to me in the first place? How come OVERSEER can’t touch me, if it’s all on the same framework?_

“Because every augmentation you have contains a driver. And what I’ve done is replace OVERSEER’s drivers with my own. The architecture was already there, I simply…stepped into the panopticon’s blind spot and used the base that already existed. All the processors it uses were created by the same company. There are backdoors built into every single piece of technology in the Isles. I didn’t need to build them myself, I only needed to open the key to preexisting doors. Doors that no one knew about or predicted.”

_So you can affect systems._

“Not easily,” the Outsider says. He shrugs. “I can’t easily if at all make an impact on programs. But I can observe kernel memory data and extract even heavily protected information, as well as observe every user connected to a host machine. With the nature of the singularity being what it is, I can see everything. I can’t act on the systems; that’s why I need people to help me in the physical world.”

Corvo thinks on this for a moment. _And how haven’t you been found yet?_

He gets a positively smug smile for that. “The operations I perform, due to the…nature of the exploit, aren’t logged like normal viruses and malware. OVERSEER can’t even recognize me when I’m in that space. I call it the Void, the place where nothing is and where I can’t be seen.”

The Outsider pauses for a long moment, watching Corvo. His smile fades. As usual Corvo waits for him to speak, but right now he feels like they’re on the brink of some great precipice. These are deep secrets the Outsider’s talking about now. Things that could get him killed, should OVERSEER get hold of Corvo for any length of time at all. Things he probably shouldn’t be sharing. And yet here he is.

Finally, the Outsider speaks again. “You walk in the Void, too. We both do.”

It’s a strange jolt to hear that the Outsider thinks of them as companions. Corvo has been walking this strange space since getting out of Coldridge: half his body mechanical, constantly able to see the virtual…and the Outsider, a physical man who chooses to live his entire life within the virtual. And something clicks at the reminder that they’re truly unique in this world. Something that Corvo had only peripherally thought about that now seems the greatest truth in the world.

He lifts his augmented hand slowly and moves to touch the Outsider’s face, to press a palm to his cheek. The Outsider’s eyes black out and his outline glitches, and Corvo can feel nothing under his hand at all. “What are you doing?” the Outsider asks, volume low.

_I…forgot._

“Let me…” the Outsider starts, and stops still. A moment later, sensation floods Corvo’s hand, warmth and softness, and he thinks he might collapse in shock. It feels like he’s touching the Outsider, as if his hand is resting on bare skin. Like the Outsider is there.

_What did you do?_

“A trick of sensation programming,” the Outsider says, tipping his head slightly. Corvo feels the pressure change. “It’s not unheard of, to do this. You know that sweethearts can buy pendants that will let them feel each other’s heartbeat, be they as far apart as Redmoor and Fraeport…this is simply an extension of that.”

Corvo stands stock-still, suddenly very aware of the narrow gap between them. His thumb brushes over the Outsider’s cheekbone. _Is this you?_

The Outsider blinks slowly, green eyes back at last. “The sensation is transmitting from my hand to yours,” he says. “This is me.”

_Can I…_

“No,” the Outsider says. “I can only transmit sensation to your augmented hand. It won’t work for anything else.”

He looks at the Outsider, and thinks of how impossible this is. A dream made into a physical reality. It’s so far-fetched that it should be impossible, and yet…here he is. _Does the link go both ways?_

The Outsider’s expression doesn’t change. “Yes.”

Corvo lets go of the Outsider and for a moment he thinks he sees disappointment on that perfect face. And then there’s surprise, real surprise, as Corvo lifts his hand to his mouth and lightly kisses the back of it, the metal cold under his lips. _Did you feel that?_

“I felt it,” the Outsider says. His eyes track across Corvo’s face, the green flickering to black and back again. “I feel you.”


	18. Chapter 18

They can’t take any more time. And Corvo doesn’t have the ability, right now, to devote energy to all the implications of what just happened. The installation of the update is complete, and he must get moving. The halls are empty, but Corvo goes with confidence. He’s unrecognizable in this mask anyway, and at a masquerade ball, who will look twice at him?

Finding the sisters’ rooms is easy enough. And getting through the doors is obscenely easy, anyway. The new update takes out whole hallways of systems long enough for Corvo to get in and out of each room with exactly what he needs. He’s in the middle of the third room, searching for the identity of the sister who’s wearing the black costume, when a message comes in.

“Incoming message,” the Outsider says inside Corvo’s head. “I’ve connected you to Emily. She uncovered something rather important.”

Emily’s voice resounds in Corvo’s ear. “Find some guy called Brisby. He’s got secrets about Waverly, apparently, and he claims he’s in love with her. If you don’t want her dead, deliver her to him, and she’ll disappear without our having to do a damn thing.”

_Thanks_ , Corvo replies. _Any idea where he is?_

“He’s on the main floor, at the bar. Or at least that’s where he is at every other party the man goes to, according to my source.” There’s the sound of a gunshot. “Shit. Got to go!”

And just like that, she’s gone.

“I recommend the subway-level floor,” the Outsider says, as if nothing at all is wrong. He can see what’s happening to Emily, so Corvo guesses that it’s all right. “I’ve uploaded a floor plan of the mansion—also courtesy of your spectacular daughter—so make use of that how you will.”

_I’ll get her out._

Waverly Boyle wears red, apparently. There aren’t so many in red tonight, and she’s easy to spot, dancing on a stage. According to documentation in her room, she’s having horrible paranoia and fears regarding her relationship to Burrows. Corvo formulates a plan to deal with her, as he heads for the bar to meet with Brisby; he’ll use her paranoia to get her away from everyone else, knock her out, and hand her off to the waiting arms of Brisby.

It’s so easy, once the pieces all fall into place. No one even knows Corvo has been there, much less that he’s gotten one of the sisters kidnapped. Waverly is absurdly easy to coax away, though he can’t speak; Brisby is ready and waiting. Corvo feels a certain pang, handing Waverly off. She’ll live, of course, but Corvo isn’t entirely sure his conscience will survive it.

Still, he’s not entirely sure either what else he could have done.

 

***

 

The drive back to the Hounds Pits in the taxi is silent. Corvo sits in the backseat and unseeingly watches the city flash by. Though the Kaldwin Bridge is mere blocks from here, the security on it is so heavy now that getting across is impossible. Samuel has to drive a circuit of what seems half the city, all the way back to the Drapers Ward and across a bridge there into the Distillery District. The rush of his tires through the standing water on the road is soothing, the racing lights alongside the taxi almost comfortable in their familiarity.

“We should talk,” the Outsider says.

He’s sitting beside Corvo in the backseat, and Samuel is utterly unaware of his presence. _We should. What was that, at the party?_

“I don’t know.”

_You danced with me. Led me where I needed to go._ Corvo pauses, studying the young man. Shadows flicker over him, strobing; his simulacrum is well-programmed. _Touched me._

The Outsider leans an elbow on the window, head in his hand. “I told you, Corvo. You’re…special.”

Something about this interaction is charged in a way that none of their interactions have been before. _You don’t like human contact much. Don’t blame you._

“I prefer the virtual.”

They’re silent for a long while. Samuel hums a tune up front. An old sailor shanty, from the days when Dunwall was a city of fishermen and sailors and whaling ships. Corvo doesn’t know the words. They didn’t sing those, in Karnaca, and when he came to Dunwall there were no more whales in the sea.

_I want to see you._

“I don’t want to see you,” the Outsider says. “I’m here. Isn’t this enough?”

Corvo doesn’t dignify that with a reply. He just watches the Outsider, at the cyclic repeated patterns that his simulacrum uses as he moves, and wonders if it’s the black eyes or the green that are his real ones as they flicker. It might not even matter, to the Outsider. The Outsider, who’d rather live in the Void, virtual, untouchable, than out in the physical world. _This isn’t you._

The Outsider’s hand glitches as he takes Corvo’s, but after a moment the visual resolves and it seems as though their hands are wrapped around each other once again. The pressure is there, as if Corvo is actually holding a physical hand. “This _is_ me,” he says, gently emphatic.

_I can’t touch you. Not physically._

“I don’t like to be touched,” the Outsider says. “I’ve been alone a long time, Corvo. Contact is…dangerous, for someone like me.”

_Is this even your real face?_

“As close as I can make it.”

Corvo studies him, the fringe of soft black hair, the brilliant green eyes. The sardonic arch of the brows, the stern mouth. He’s beautiful. He’s always been beautiful. Graceful, intelligent, witty. A flirt, really. Though he still aches for Jessamine, it’s been almost eight months since she was killed. Corvo has mourned, and though he may never stop mourning…he’s always been a man to look to the future, not the past. _I want you._

Without warning the virtual connection snaps, disconnecting. Corvo’s vision blurs for half a second before the Outsider is back and everything is as it was. “Not yet.”

If Corvo had to guess, that connection interrupt was so the Outsider could reduce the sensitivity of whatever motion capture he’s using to transmit his face on the simulacrum, because now he’s utterly expressionless, like a mannequin. _I didn’t mean to scare you_.

“I’m not afraid,” the Outsider says. Even his voice is a monotone now. Corvo feels bad for being so forward, and yet… “But the time isn’t right.”

His hand in Corvo’s is still light as a feather, and when Corvo moves his hand the wrong way the edges of the visual clip and break through him. It’s virtual. This still isn’t physical. It’s not the way Corvo wants it to be. _When will it be right?_

The Outsider blinks slowly. In the lights through the windows he could almost be physical. “When you catch up to Hiram Burrows and eliminate him,” he says. “I think that’s a good time.”


	19. Chapter 19

“We’ve isolated him,” Havelock says. “Burrows has no true allies any longer. We have all the information, we know all the names, and we have removed everyone who might assist him in the final hour. Now it’s time for him.”

“Finally,” Emily says. She’s sitting at the bar, elbows resting on the bar top behind her. Cecilia sits on one side, Callista on the other. It’s good to see her with friends. “So when do we go?”

“‘We’?” Martin asks. “ _You_ are not going anywhere.”

Emily’s eyes spark with anger. “I am going to find him.”

“I won’t say no,” Corvo says. “He’ll be waiting for trouble, now. Security will be tight.”

Pendleton clears his throat delicately. “Are you sure that Miss Kaldwin won’t be…a liability?”

Emily is out of her chair and across the room, leaning over Pendleton where he sits. “I found Waverly Boyle’s name by sneaking to the Courier offices. Tallboys chased me across half of Dunwall so I could find more information about her. I have the augments. If you try to stop me—”

“Enough,” Corvo says. He folds his arms. “Emily is going with me.”

She turns away from Pendleton and raises her chin imperiously. Emily doesn’t need to say a word: they all know that what Corvo says is, essentially, law. It’s he who has the actual task of challenging Burrows’ rule, and so he is the one who has to choose his tools.

“I think,” Piero says, stepping into the conversation, “that I should make sure to install the Blink technology on Miss Kaldwin before they go. She could easily get left behind, if Corvo has it and she doesn’t.”

“That’s half a week of recovery,” Martin puts in. “Can we afford that kind of time?”

“It might even be better,” Havelock says. He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Let Burrows panic, let him begin to make mistakes, to let slip the things he shouldn’t. And then we strike.”

“Besides, in the meantime I can go in and do some surveillance on what’s changed at the Tower while Emily is in recovery, so that I won’t slow her down once we’re inside,” Corvo says, his borrowed voice grating as usual.

Emily points at him, a smile tugging at her lips. “You. I like you.”

_I hope so, I’m your father!_ Corvo messages, but outwardly just smiles.

“It’s settled, then,” Martin says brusquely. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have business.”

Martin departs, and shortly thereafter Pendleton and Havelock make their excuses. Piero disappears back to the workshop, where he and Sokolov will surely end up in another enjoyable shouting match while Piero prepares for Emily’s procedure. This leaves Corvo, Emily, Callista, and the intelligences in the bar together, looking at each other awkwardly. It might be better if Samuel were there, but he’s out actually carrying passengers through Dunwall. There will always be a need for someone willing to take people from one place to the next, and Samuel is the best at what he does.

Corvo slides smoothly back into messaging, his now-preferred form of communication: _I’d say drinks all around, but that might be rude._

Lydia rolls her eyes. “Come off it. We can drink just fine, you know, as long as it’s virtual.” She gets physical drinks going for the physicals before bringing out virtual drinks for the intelligences.

Cecelia looks awkwardly sideways at Callista. “You sure you’re all right, wasting time with virtual people like us?”

Callista hesitates. “I’m…not used to it, no,” she says. “But we’re all conspirators together, aren’t we? The company is fine.”

“Glad to hear it,” Cecelia says, with a genuine smile.

The more time he spends with her, the more Corvo likes Cecelia. She’s fiery and independent and kind; chances are good she picked up those traits through adaptive algorithms, not through preinstalled software. Actually, Corvo likes all three of the intelligences. Lydia plays the vivacious hostess, but she’s got a lot more going on beneath the surface and simply doesn’t like to share. Wallace, now that he’s warmed up, is willing to actually talk to Corvo when they pass in the hall, even if they’ll never be real friends.

For a while, they drink and talk. The company really is good. It’s easy to forget, for a moment, the enormity of what lies before them. Emily is a live wire of energy, laughing and cracking jokes, and it’s clearly not a mask. Corvo has seen her sad; this isn’t that. It’s razor-edged anger sharpened by fear and grief, and that’s a dangerous combination. Even in Coldridge, Corvo’s anger had been dull, a slow-burning thing eating a hole through him.

Then again, perhaps that’s age. Emily is twenty-five, cut adrift from the protected world in which she’d grown up, forced into an environment of sickening violence and constant fear. It might be the norm, for most of Dunwall’s citizens, but it’s still a shock to her system.

He makes sure to stop and talk to her in private, before Piero starts the procedure. There’s not much to be said, really. Corvo promises to be there when she wakes up and leaves her to it, chatting coolly with Piero as he begins to anesthetize her. She’ll be all right.

 

***

 

Half a week later, Dunwall is abuzz with rumor. It’s everywhere: that Hiram Burrows is running scared of something he can’t name, that OVERSEER is taking an unusually personal interest in the disposition of the shares of Kaldwin Enterprises, that shares in any company in which Burrows is involved are taking a price dive. And, perhaps more frightening to everyone, the Weeper virus is raging unchecked through the city. OVERSEER strives to protect its citizens, but the only sure way to avoid infection is to go off-grid…and no one is willing to go that far.

Disturbingly, Corvo has heard nothing from the Outsider. After their last conversation, he’d expected…more, somehow. And suddenly he finds himself wanting more. But the Outsider was right about one thing, at least: there’s no time for such personal matters, not when they’re on the brink of taking action. Corvo has spent his week in surveillance of the Tower, checking to see if the security holes he remembers are still present, and making sure they won’t be shot on sight. The exact moment that Piero gives Emily a clean bill of health and she’s tested her new augments a little, Corvo calls a meeting to discuss the attack on Burrows.

Of course, the exact second the meeting begins, the Loyalists as a whole get a bad case of cold feet. Corvo is exasperated at a sudden outburst of backtracking and fear. They’re afraid of consequences, he realizes, of the magnitude of exactly what they’ve set up.

“—wait a while,” Pendleton is saying. “I’m still consolidating control of my brothers’ holdings, after all, and shares are down for all of us.”

“Perhaps another move, a destabilizing maneuver,” Martin suggests, cool as ever. Corvo still can’t get a read on the man, and he still doesn’t like Martin at all.

Havelock nods, but Pendleton is the one to speak. “I do think we could take a look at some of the company’s other supporters—"

“Enough,” Corvo says. Everyone, including an increasingly-frustrated Emily, looks at him. “We make our move now, today.”

“There’s too much chaos,” Havelock says. “The city’s falling to anarchy! Nothing can possibly be predicted. It’s too risky to move.”

Corvo shrugs. “We all live in a place called the edge of chaos,” he says, and almost startles when he realizes that he’s repeating words that the Outsider once told him. “It’s the moment between order and disorder. This conspiracy, Emily and I—we’re introducing disorder to that moment, forcing Burrows to adapt or die. He’s not adapting. He can’t keep up. We make our move now and he’s off his guard. But that won’t last forever.”

“He’s right,” Emily says. She slides off the bar stool and heads for the door, pulling her scarf up over her nose and mouth. “Samuel, you coming?”

The drive has to go the long way, as usual; the Kaldwin Bridge is still not a good choice. In the back seat, Corvo watches out the window and contemplates what’s to come; Emily, he presumes, is doing the same thing. Until she turns to him and says,

“The edge of chaos, huh?”

_Is that a problem?_

“That’s his phrase,” Emily says.

Corvo thinks about what’s happening and realizes that he actually has no idea at all. _Does it upset you that we talk when you aren’t around?_

“Not…upset,” Emily says, after a measured pause. “More confused.”

_You don’t like him?_

“Well. I didn’t expect to like him,” Emily admits. “He’s, um. A bit of a…”

_Pretentious ass?_

“You said it, not me.”

Corvo smiles and ruffles her short hair. She swats at his hand, but smiles back. _Helpful, though, having that little voice in your head. Missed having him around while you were breaking into the Courier offices._

Emily gives him an odd look. “Did you really? You’ve only known him…”

_A few weeks and a dozen firefights,_ Corvo points out. Why is he justifying himself to her? _He’s done nothing but help us. I see no reason not to like him._

“Huh,” Emily says. “With your trust issues I thought…never mind.”

He does have to wonder about that, suddenly. Corvo is a man with major trust issues, and with entirely good reason. But the Outsider just walked in and suddenly all that paranoia disappeared. He trusts the Outsider with his life—this technology, all of it, is his, and he has to. Why?

Well, the Outsider helped get Emily back, for one thing. _I’m glad to have you with me, Em._

Emily ducks her head and gives him a small smile. “I’m glad to be here.”

In silence, they roll on toward Dunwall Tower.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy. Happy Saturday to all. <3 <3 <3

They slip into Dunwall Tower from the Wrenhaven River. Once a city building, the historic foundations of the skyscraper are dwarfed by the architectural marvel it has become. Its huge silhouette dominates the city skyline, a temple of business and progress, humble origins forgotten. Getting into the tower via frontal assault would be effective suicide. There are no doors that would admit Corvo and Emily without raising a hundred alarms. Down in the historic foundations, though, there are plenty of blind spots, starting with a waterlock that’s meant to admit goods to the tower.

Emily stabs a hagfish repeatedly as it wriggles out of the water after them. “Why did we swim?” she mutters, wiping off her sword and shaking water out of her eyes.

_There’s no other good way in._ Corvo looks up at the gate which will prevent their access. There’s no way to climb, but… _Come on._

He reaches up toward a ledge, pulls—

—and lands.

Then Emily is beside him, grinning like a wolf. “I like this,” she says, and reaches for the next ledge.

Side by side, they Blink up and over the gate and into the main room. There’s an arc pylon on the other side of the doors—Emily takes care of that with a quick file replacement. Corvo guides her up to the door that puts them out on a balcony, one he knows for a fact isn’t surveilled worth a damn. It overlooks the wide staircase that leads up to the old courtyard, and as they come out onto the narrow ledge there’s that telltale clanking sound…

_Tallboy._

“Oh, come on,” Emily mutters. Her eyes flick over the area. “…you stay here. I’ve done this.” And without any more discussion, she Blinks up the wall, all the way to the top. Corvo watches in trepidation as she leans over, sword drawn, waiting.

The Tallboy stomps into the yard, spotlights sweeping. Corvo crouches on instinct, but he didn’t need to worry. Above, there’s a faint shuffle.

Emily drops like an anchor. She hits the Tallboy from above and, before its alarm can even sound, slams her sword straight through the pilot’s neck and into the body. There’s a cut-off groan and the sound of shattering electronics.

The suit sways for a moment, Emily on its back. And then it crumbles, slamming to the ground in a pile of useless metal. Emily hits the ground and rolls. She gets up, brushing off her coat, as Corvo drops down to the ground beside her.

“It’s the only way to get them,” she says, pursing her lips. “Too damn tall for a ground kill and too fast to run from…”

_I haven’t been killing them._

She gives him a stunned look. “You just _run_? How are you _alive_?”

Corvo sighs and claps her on the shoulder. _Experience, Em. That was a good shot. We should get moving._ And before she can criticize him any more, he’s off across the yard, headed for the wall.

Above them is another ledge, easy enough to Blink to, and they circle the ledge until they reach the huge ventilation shaft. It’s industrial, meant for the entire tower, so Corvo and Emily can fit easily inside. The security cameras are ones Corvo put in place himself, and it’s almost a guarantee that Burrows hasn’t gone to the trouble to overhaul it. And after his week of surveillance, Corvo knows that all the holes he’d meant to patch and never gotten around to are still there.

The ventilation shaft carries them up away from the historic structure and into the modern tower proper. It’s one hell of a climb, and Corvo guides them out onto a ledge over the huge entrance foyer of the Tower. The room is vaulted, golden, windowless; magnificently clean-lined and beautiful. A stark contrast to the rainy night outside, stalking with Tallboys and glaring neon.

“I had no idea this place was so full of security holes,” Emily whispers, peering over the edge. “I—look, there, Corvo.”

Corvo follows suit, crouching at the edge of the ledge. Up here, they’re above all the cameras and motion detectors, out of range because most security systems don’t bother to look up. And below, he can see two people, talking to Burrows via a large screen. He didn’t expect the surge of hate that fills him at the sight of the man’s face, but he welcomes it all the same.

“—work from the panic room instead of your office!” one of the men says, voice echoing up.

Burrows scoffs. “No one is coming for me, nor will they. It’s all coincidence. They’d have struck by now, but there’s no evidence of assassins in the night!”

“Even so,” the other says. “Sir. You’d be safer in the panic room.”

“I work where I please,” Burrows says. “I’ll be in my office, should any emergencies arise.” And the screen goes dark. The two men depart, talking as they go about Burrows’ failure of foresight.

Emily turns to Corvo. “We have him,” she says, eyes alight. “He’s right there. I know where his office is—you know—we can get there, we can _kill him_!”

_No._

The joy drains from her face. “What?”

_If we kill him, we can’t get the company back. He’ll lose it, but so will you. We have to discredit him. Prove his guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. He’s responsible for the Weeper virus, he and Campbell. Together they’re the ones tearing Dunwall apart. If we can prove that…_

Emily’s mouth twists and she looks away. After a moment, her shoulders slump. “He’ll have kept records,” she says dully. “He has to. If we can find them, we can broadcast it to all of Dunwall.”

_Then that’s what we look for._ Corvo looks around the room. _First we need to break into the broadcasting station._

“I have the key,” Emily says. “I have administrator permissions for every system in the Tower.”

Corvo looks up, up the impossibly high column of the foyer, stretching up twenty stories above them. There are ledges and glass elevator shafts everywhere, places for them to Blink. _Then let’s go._

The ascent is dizzying, the floor below narrowing to a tiny square. Corvo catches Emily once when she makes a bad leap; she catches him when his foot unexpectedly slips as the elevator he landed on begins to move. It feels surreal, as if they’re ascending into some kind of dreamscape, tumbling up in defiance of all gravity and physics into a virtual Void where they can’t be touched.

Emily breaks them into the broadcasting station, arrogantly putting her codes on display. Every alert in the Tower will be screaming, letting the world know that she’s back in her rightful place, and Corvo hopes that it makes Burrows afraid. He hopes that Burrows understands that they’re here for him…and as a last resort, they will kill him.

The broadcasting station intelligence is willing to help, because Emily provided the correct codes and has the permissions. “Yes, Mr. Burrows recorded all of his ideas, though he’s locked it down in a physical safe in his office,” he says. “Should you get that recording to me, I would be happy to send it out for you, Miss Kaldwin.”

_Thanks_. Corvo nods to the intelligence—who, like Wallace, looks pleasantly surprised at the acknowledgement. He turns to Emily. _We have to move fast_.

Side by side, they sprint down the hall. Their only goal now is getting to that safe, that recording, and they can’t afford to slow down.

Until they come around a corner and run straight into a heavily-armed group of guards and a Tallboy, with no chance of retreat.

Corvo executes Bend Time and reaches out to Emily. _Go get the recording!_

_No!_ He can already see her moving, drawing her weapons. _You won’t kill them and we haven’t got time to play games! Get to the safe, I’ll keep them busy!_

Time accelerates and Corvo Blinks before he thinks about it, past the guards and the Tallboy, hitting the ground running. He looks back to see Emily Blinking straight into their midst, a spray of blood spattering the walls as she slashes one man with her sword, and then he has no more time.

Burrows’ office is empty: the man must be in a panic, looking elsewhere for Emily after her sudden appearance. Corvo finds the safe with little trouble, Possesses it to get the combination, and pulls out the only memory card inside.

He takes the long way around, praying that Emily is all right, and practically kicks down the broadcast station door. _I have the recording._

“Please insert the card here,” the intelligence says calmly. He gestures to a slot and Corvo shoves the card home, stepping back to let the intelligence do his work. “This file is heavily encrypted. It will take me just a moment.”

The door opens again and Emily stumbles inside. Corvo turns and catches her. There’s a burn on her cheek, but her eyes are fiery. “I got them all,” she says. “Traitors. They deserved what they got!”

Corvo doesn’t argue. He gestures at the window, the view of the tower below, and they go to watch together. Below, they can see Burrows striding about giving orders; from here, they’ll be able to see it all. They can watch.

The intelligence looks up from its work. “Broadcasting in three…

Corvo isn’t ready.

“Two…”

Is Dunwall ready?

“One…”

There’s nothing they can do to stop it now.

“Zero.”


	21. Chapter 21

Burrows’ face appears on every screen in reach, and presumably the one below. All activity ceases, and all eyes turn to the screen. Corvo’s breath catches. At last. At last. There’s going to be _justice._

“If I explain, then you will see I am not at fault,” Burrows says. “The Poverty Eradication Plan was meant to bring prosperity to the city, to rid us of those scoundrels who waste their days in filth and drink, without homes or occupations other than to beg for the money for which the rest of us toil.”

Emily lets out a small sob and Corvo holds her tighter. “He killed Mom for…this?”

“It was a simple plan,” Burrows continues. “Build a virus, with the assistance of OVERSEER and its most trusted servants. Let it loose among the poor, let it drive them out or destroy them…or, in time, control them. But the disease—it was as if it sought to undo me. It hid from programmers, spread in every possible way. And soon it didn’t matter. All of us were falling sick, firewalls or not.”

Corvo wishes he had a voice so he could scream. He knows. He knows what happened and yet it’s different, hearing the confession.

Burrows rubs his face. “And then people began to ask questions. Jessamine Kaldwin assigned me to investigate the exact origin of the virus in hopes of finding a cure. I knew the truth would come out eventually. So there was no other way than to be rid of her, and take power myself. She had to die, you see.” He stops, a crazed look coming into his eyes. “ _She had to die!”_

Then Emily does scream, slamming her fist down on the desk, the surface fracturing under the impact of her augmented hand. She’s sobbing in full now, tears streaming down her face. Corvo only feels numb, all his anger dying in the face of a terrible, terrible despair.

“Bringing about the death of someone like Kaldwin is not an easy thing, but it gave me the chance to attack the plague with some real authority,” Burrows says. “OVERSEER could form quarantines, isolate whole districts, deport the sick—all without a protest! But there’s always some idiot woman searching for her wretched lost baby, or some sniveling workman searching for his missing wife. And then quarantine is broken!”

The broadcast room is silent except for Emily’s shattered cries.

“But you can see how my plan should have worked? Would have worked! If everyone had just followed orders…”

The announcement, the confession, the damning evidence of exactly what Burrows has done, rings into silence. Everyone in Dunwall will have heard it, that it was Burrows who had Jessamine killed to prevent her from working out that OVERSEER’s servants had made the Weeper plague. That the singularity was at fault. It’s over for Burrows. He’s finished.

Silently, Emily leans against Corvo’s shoulder. He takes her hand. Together, they watch the drama finally play out below.

The police burst through the door, aiming weapons at Burrows. His own bodyguards, too, turn on him. Burrows holds up his hands, and after a few tense moments he’s handcuffed and led away, out of the hall. Out of Dunwall Tower. People are suddenly moving, running around, obviously trying to determine who’s in charge now, where they go next. And it’s up to them: Corvo can’t do any more to help except go back to the Loyalists and bring Emily home at last.

Both of them turn away from the window when the Outsider appears beside them, beautiful face cast in carefully-rendered light, as if he’s standing right there. “You’ve done it,” he says. “Burrows is finished. But for you, and for this city, and for the Isles, this is far from over.”

“I know,” Emily whispers. She turns into Corvo, burying her face in his coat, just as if she were a small girl again. The enormity of what she’s done has clearly just hit her. He holds her tight. 

The Outsider looks at them, expression neutral. “You still aren’t in legal possession of the company,” he says. “You will have to make that on your own. More devastatingly, perhaps, the realization of OVERSEER’s designs will strike fear into everyone and new riots, worse than before, will break out. The Weeper plague is still raging with no signs of stopping, and Sokolov—the only man with a chance of curing it—is hidden away, perhaps dead by now. Anyone holding the reins of power in this city is gone. Dunwall is poised on the brink of total disaster.”

Corvo narrows his eyes. Something isn't right. _Did you plan for this?_

“I have laid more groundwork for this moment than you know,” the Outsider says. He gazes at the skyline, visible from a window across the atrium, the lights of Dunwall not reflected in his green eyes.

_You wanted this._

Emily rips herself back, turning on the simulacrum. “I trusted you! Corvo trusted you!”

The Outsider is expressionless. “You can still trust me; I did not desire chaos. I want what comes next. But that is still a ‘next.’ We have time. At the moment we are standing in the eye of the hurricane, and while we will eventually be forced into motion…not yet.”

He holds out a hand and Corvo takes it, feeling the weight and solidity of his hand. _Then we’ll go back to the Loyalists. And go home._

“Emily can and should do that, on her own,” the Outsider says. His eyes flash black, then green again. “You…isn’t there something else you could do?”

He thinks on it, and he knows. Emily turns to him. “What does he mean?”

_You have to trust me, Emily._

“Corvo?” Her voice is sharp.

The Outsider ignores her. “Come to Karnaca, Corvo. The abandoned nuclear bunker complex under Shindaerey Peak. You can access it through the North Quarry—I won’t insult your intelligence by giving you those directions.”

He pauses for a long moment. Corvo almost doesn’t want to move. There’s a sudden, paralyzing fear in him, a terror of what happens next. Of what happens when he reaches the peak.

The Outsider lets go of his hand. “Come find me.”

And then he’s gone.

“What does he mean?” Emily whispers.

_I'm going to meet him in the physical world._

Emily stares at him, uncomprehending. “I’ve got to go with you.”

Corvo shakes his head. He pushes her hair back, out of her eyes. _No. Stay here. Start consolidating your assets, get yourself ready for the legal fight. The Loyalists will help you. I’m useless to you now._

“No,” Emily says, voice raw. “You can’t leave me.”

_It won’t be forever._ Corvo looks her in the eye, then at her hand. They bear the same mark, there, that strange sigil. The Outsider's mark. _And with luck I’ll come back with our mysterious benefactor._

She swallows hard and steps back, eyes going hard. “All right,” she says. “All right. I…guess that’s what we do. And with luck, by the time you get back…everything will be all right again.”


	22. Chapter 22

Corvo doesn’t go back to the Hounds Pits. That would take too much time. No: he leaves the Tower and bolts for the bullet train station. It’s close, only a few blocks south of the Tower, and in the chaos of the streets no one notices one more masked man.

The broadcast has thrown the city into a panic. People are screaming, organizing into impromptu marches, rioting. He hears gunshots echoing in the city streets on his way to the station, but it doesn’t seem that the police are fighting the rioters. No: it looks like they’re turning on themselves. OVERSEER must be going haywire, trying to control the madness. Rain hammers down and thunder roars overhead, as if the weather itself is reacting to what just happened.

A tramping march of Tallboys forces Corvo into an unexpected fight. He blasts them with Devouring Swarm, which works, and knocks them off guard long enough for Corvo to Blink to the top of a building and take off across the rooftops. From up here, he can see the fires starting across the city, the helicopters swirling around OVERSEER’s server hub, the flashing of sirens. He can hear the chants, the screams, the sirens. The whole of Dunwall is eating itself alive.

But the bullet trains are still running.

The station is mostly empty of people, except for those who’ve sought it as a refuge or are trying to get aboard a train to somewhere else. Corvo can’t exactly get a ticket, so he waits for a bullet train to prepare for departure. He Blinks into an empty car just as the train hisses and begins to move, landing neatly inside as it takes off.

Inside, the car is dead silent. The walls are scrawled with graffiti, white lights in cracked casings steady overhead. There’s only a faint sense of acceleration, and Corvo takes a seat. Even as fast as these things go, he’s got a couple of hours to wait. Trash is littered under the seats: this isn’t exactly a first-class car. The windows are streaked with rain, but he can’t see a thing but blackness. They’re passing over the ocean, so of course there’s nothing to see. The train sways a little, perhaps, but it’s barely perceptible.

Uncaring of consequences, now, Corvo takes off his mask. He runs a hand through his hair, wiping his face dry, and tips his head back against the wall. Exhaustion is sinking into his bones, slowly but surely. It’s over. His job is done. The one goal he’s had since he staggered out of Coldridge…it’s complete. Burrows is gone, his supporters missing or dead. Jessamine is avenged. Emily will take the reins of the company. The world will no longer tremble on its axis.

Idly, to pass the time, he reads the graffiti—the stuff that’s readable, anyway. It’s a sprawl of paint and words hacked into the walls of the car with a knife, layers of it until it’s almost faded into illegibility.

“Hatters fired the first shot, but Bottle Street Gang fired the last”

“TAXES TAXES TAXES TAXES”

“cut deeper on a weeper”

“THE OUTSIDER WALKS AMONG US”

This last makes Corvo pause. The Outsider walks among us? Really. Interesting sentiment. How many people know about his esoteric hacker? He claims he’s a secret, but…his activities can’t have gone entirely unnoticed. Even if OVERSEER denies his existence, pretends he isn’t a threat…he still exists.

He wonders if the Outsider is watching him now, or if his attention is on Emily. Though part of Corvo wishes he could watch the Outsider pace up and down the car, haughty face alight as he explains his plans and ideas, the rest of Corvo knows that Emily needs the Outsider more. She’s in the most danger right now. Even if she’s competent and smart—that drop assassination on the Tallboy really was something, wasn’t it—there are many obstacles in her path.

But Corvo’s job is done. He’s not the protagonist of the story anymore. Now it’s Emily’s turn. And Corvo is free to chase what he wants.

The bullet train hurtles on in silence over the stormy sea.

 

***

 

Stepping off the bullet train into the sunlight of Karnaca is a shock. Corvo hasn’t been back in several years, and it’s easy to forget that Karnaca is far south, on the other side of the isle of Serkonos and past a mountain range. It’s well protected from the storms that batter the south of the isle of Gristol, where Dunwall stands, and the north coast of Serkonos. The heat is strong here, hot enough on the worst days that water will evaporate on being exposed to open air. For all its beauty, the mountains are bare and brown, baked by the unrelenting sun. Still, Karnaca keeps its pride as the most beautiful place in all the Isles. Though it too has its retaining wall to keep back the rising oceans, it remains a city on the sea, wrapping around a calm bay with mountains at its back. It’s beautiful, the Jewel of the South.

Karnaca has Dunwall’s sprawl, but prior to the rise of OVERSEER it had already begun turning toward renewable fuels and a powerful service sector. Much of the rest of the Isles relied on manufacturing and raw materials, and does to this day, though with Dunwall serving as OVERSEER’s power center it’s ascended rapidly to an information center. Karnaca has retained much of its pre-OVERSEER character, a city of beautiful and historic buildings with its skyscrapers clustered on Point Abele, a promontory that juts into the bay.

The best machines come from Karnaca, courtesy of Jindosh Industries; luxury goods ship north from Karnaca to everywhere else in the Isles, rare and expensive. The Cyria Gardens are famous across the Isles. The famous Doctor Alexandria Hypatia researches all manner of diseases from the Addermire Institute, and at the very tip of Point Abele sits the historic Grand Palace of the Duke, now a museum.

As he walks out of the bullet train station and into the sunny day, Corvo feels a wave of nostalgia and even homesickness. This was where he’d won his internship, the place he’d abandoned to run off to Dunwall. He’d been back, of course, as Jessamine’s bodyguard and once to attend his mother’s brief funeral and claim what little his family had left. But this…this is different from those times.

Something about this feels like Corvo is coming home to stay.

The streets swelter with impossible heat, the sun baking down on the city. Walls are bleached white; asphalt streets crack like Corvo’s lips. Dust rises in clouds around every person, and cold air floods out from every open doorway in a failed attempt at relief. There are hardy plants, here, fat succulents that range green along the roadsides. Screens are kept indoors, and advertisements are mostly audial instead of visual. As a result the streets are a riot of sound, noise raging on all sides, music overlaid with commercial after commercial.

There are no Tallboys here, or augmented dogs and police. No, there are just great spidery creatures, glittering golden in the sun, blazoned with the logo of Jindosh Industries. They strut and skutter through the crowd, surveying: they might be a sort of automaton, Corvo supposes, but they’re highly noticeable. One can see them coming a mile away, and people do, giving them a great berth. Even here in Karnaca, there’s an air of barely repressed violence from everyone. A riot is just one thrown rock away.

He’s not looked at twice in the crowds. They look like him, these Serkonans: dark-skinned and dark-eyed, tall and hardy. And despite his different dress, no one cares. As in Dunwall, these people are more concerned with their own affairs than his. The Dazzle style is different here, he notices: while the people of Dunwall are given to blocky geometries and sharply neon color patterns, the streetwear of Karnaca is organic and brilliant with jewel tones. Blues, greens, and purples predominate, deep as the sea, and in crowds it feels as though he’s swimming through fish.

Corvo has to take off his coat, lest he boil alive: he also, when pressed, dispenses with his jacket and unbuttons his shirt. Most people here wear loose, light clothing, nothing like the heavy leathers and waterproof fabrics of Dunwall. There’s no need to keep off the cold in Karnaca.

The bullet train came in at Aventa Station, which means Corvo has to get all the way around the bay in order to reach the way up to the North Quarry. His route will go through the Batista Mining District all the way to the Old Quarter, and as he circles the bay the city gets gradually poorer and poorer. The hard times have come to Karnaca, too: here the problem is not virtual, but physical, as bloodflies are everywhere, swarming up whenever a single stone is disturbed.

This part of the city is so dilapidated that it seems no one even lives here. Of course there are residents, but none of the systems are heavily wired. Security cameras are nearly nonexistent. Who watches somewhere like this, the worst part of the urban sprawl? It’s hot, and there are few enough buildings with real cooling systems. As he passes through the streets, there are only a few dim and flickering neon signs. Perfectly natural eyes watch him dully. This…this is the place he remembers, not the wealthy and beautiful Karnaca. This was where he lived when he was young.  

The disused trams, once used for mining before the industry was bought out and the actual mines moved to Tyvia, will carry Corvo up to the North Quarry. He has to Possess the old systems to get the trams running. It’s lucky he has that “backwards-compatible” technology the Outsider so loves.

It’s a rattling, banging ride up the mountain. The quarry, an old strip mine that tore away a quarter of Shindaerey Peak, looms before him. He remembers when the mining went, when they lost all the mineral wealth and the companies were bought out. Most of his friends’ fathers lost their jobs, and that was the beginning of the end for the poorer parts of Karnaca.

At the station he disembarks the tram and walks through the empty station. Feral dogs bark at him, but he ignores them. The big old buildings are completely empty, stripped of everything useful long ago. Dust drifts up under his feet with every step and before long his boots are covered in a fine layer of white powder. Except for the dogs and a few small skittering animals he never gets a good look at, Corvo seems to be completely alone.

Beyond the buildings is the quarry itself. He’s in the middle of the buildings when his heart stutters in his chest, as it hasn’t in what feels like forever. A moment later there’s a familiar ringing in his ears and a dot of light appears on his vision, a tracking beacon: his heart has picked up on something nearby, some compatible technology.

Corvo wonders absently what it is as he hops over a fallen wall and onto the cracked road leading into the open arena of the quarry. He sees nothing, no computer terminals, no place where a memory card might even be hidden. It’s just a vast open area of rock, bordered by sheer walls. Nothing at all. No door, no bunker, nothing.

The only thing he really sees is the marker on his vision.

A conversation with the Outsider, so long ago it’s almost completely faded from his conscious memory, drifts through his head: _Your heart is programmed with sensors to tell you when secrets are hidden nearby. If you listen to it, you may find what you need._

He stares at the dot for a moment, and then at the faint shadow on the rock that can only be a door. And then it clicks, and he breaks into a dead run. This is what he needs. The heart isn’t picking up some new program.

His heart is tracking the Outsider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can stab me if you want. I'm an absolute savage. :>


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE, MY FRIENDS.
> 
> HERE WE GO.

The door opens for him, when he finds it. Corvo steps through the heavy blast door and into a dark, cool place full of the whirring of fans and the hiss of cooling systems. The air itself seems to pulse, as if the mountain around him is breathing. All he can do is follow the beacon, leading him deeper and deeper into the complex. There are computers everywhere in every room he passes through, security systems lining the corridors, and a network to which he connects instantly. This is exactly the kind of place that the Outsider would live, isn’t it?

He comes at last to a server room, right at the core of the complex. And when he pushes open the door, it’s to see a man standing with his back to the door, watching a live security feed of Corvo entering the room as he does. Corvo stops still, waiting, and the man turns.

“Hello, Corvo.”

He’s used to the Outsider being intangible. He’s also used to a fringe and long hair, and to a leather jacket and boots and a high collar, and to intangible hands and silent footsteps. He isn’t used to this, to this beautiful man, cut in hard edges and sharp relief of shadows and light. His hair is shorn to his skull, completely gone, to leave space for the augments and ports that pattern the left side of his head in a strange mosaic. His bare figure, while perfect, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, is unfamiliar out of the clothes. Corvo yearns to touch him, to trace the lines of his ribs sweeping over his chest, the muscles evident over his bare chest. And his augmentations are…terrifying. Both arms, both legs. They’re perfectly formed for him, looking as natural as the arms and legs they presumably replaced, except for the matte black color and the fact that they’re metal, motors humming gently as he moves.

But the face is the same. The sharp jaw, the high cheekbones and wide black eyes…this is the Outsider. Corvo could never mistake him.

“I’m not what you expected,” he says in that familiar dry voice. Out here in the physical world, though, there’s a small tremor of nervousness. “More machine than man. An unpleasant sight, to most.”

_What’s your name_? Corvo asks. They’re connected, still, systems communicating fast as thought, and the Outsider smiles.

“Levi,” he says. “No one’s called me that in a long time now.”

_It’s a good name_ , Corvo says.

He crosses the room and Levi waits for him in silence. In the light from the door and the cracked blind in the window, Corvo can see a strange ring of silver in Levi’s eyes, where his green iris had been in the virtual world. He’s replaced those too, then. “Do you like what you see?” Levi murmurs. “Or are you disgusted by this body? Why do you think I present myself so differently in the Void?”

_You’re even more beautiful in person._ Corvo pauses. _I wish you could hear that in my voice._

“I do,” Levi says. He reaches up; one cold metal finger traces down the line on Corvo’s throat where his larynx had been. “It’s what I hear when you speak. Your voice. That computer thing the Loyalists gave you doesn’t begin to do it justice.”

_And your simulacrum doesn’t do you justice_. With his un-augmented hand, Corvo dares to cup Levi’s face and Levi leans into the touch. This is different again from the time that they’d tried it with sensation software. It’s skin to skin, warm and good. Levi’s eyes flutter closed. How long has it been since someone touched him, really touched him?

It’s unprompted, but Corvo doubts that Levi’s at all surprised when Corvo leans in to kiss him. He rocks forward, stepping in close so that they’re pressed together, chest to chest. Levi isn’t a small man—he’s a hundred and eighty centimeters, at least—but when Corvo has more than ten centimeters on that, and is broader and more muscular besides, he can truly envelop Levi in an embrace.

They’ve been so close for so long that this kiss is instantly familiar, as if they’d been together for years. And still it’s strange, to feel Levi’s real heartbeat, to hear him breathing, the faint hum of the motors in his limbs as he moves. Levi’s arms are around his neck, and his other arm is around Levi’s back. They’re as good as locked together, one system, one intelligence.

Levi’s beyond unpracticed, as if he’s never kissed anyone before, but Corvo can make up for that, and he does. He coaxes Levi’s mouth open and Levi gasps, letting it happen, letting Corvo in. The soft sounds are so _physical_ , so viscerally real in the dark room, that Corvo suddenly understands as he perhaps never had before why people used to say there was a difference between physical and virtual. Nothing virtual could _feel_ like this, leave his lips tingling with sensation, heat building in his stomach.

He kisses Levi until they both nearly pass out from forgetting to breathe, and even when they break apart they stay close, foreheads resting together, breathing the same air. Levi smells of ozone and burnt dust, the kind of smell Corvo associates with hot computers in closed rooms. He’ll never, Corvo realizes, be able to walk into a room like that again without thinking of Levi.

“Physical pleasure is different,” Levi says, echoing Corvo’s earlier thought. “I…have never…”

Any restraint Corvo would have had shatters. He makes a decision. Hands on Levi’s shoulders, Corvo kisses his way down the pale column of Levi’s throat, marked by a long-healed and faint scar, and over his collarbones. He slides his hands down to hold Levi’s hips, kissing over his chest, around the edge of the attachment of his arm, down the flat plane of his stomach. With agonizing slowness, he sinks onto his knees.

Levi’s wearing only loose pants, cut off at the knees, and it’s easy to pull them off, leaving the young man completely naked. The join of the augmented legs at his hips is well-placed and seamless, less jagged than the place where the connection of his right arm sprawls angularly over his shoulder and chest. These must be his most recent augmentations.

Corvo finds himself glad that certain other parts of him remain intact. Just from this Levi is hard and Corvo doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t wait: Levi actually cries out when Corvo takes him. His hands on Corvo’s shoulders tighten more than any human’s could, and it takes mere seconds before he’s coming.

Before something can disconnect long enough that he collapses, Corvo helps Levi down onto the floor. His eyes are glitching, silver rings of his irises flickering and hazing in the black, and his heartbeat under Corvo’s hand is wild. He drags Corvo in for a desperate kiss, cold metal fingers pressing bruises into Corvo’s back, and Corvo goes.

_What do you want?_ Corvo asks, letting go for a moment to give Levi a respite.

“You,” Levi breathes. His augmented fingers are cold where they slide over Corvo’s arms, tracing the hard curves. Corvo’s skin prickles at the touch. “I’ve been alone for _so long_. I…I don’t…I don’t know…”

He’s never heard a stutter from this man’s mouth before, and the sound nearly breaks Corvo’s heart. He silences Levi with a gentle kiss. _I do._

The sound of metal on metal is loud in the silence as Corvo’s augmented hand wraps around Levi’s. Their fingers lock together, as if they’d been made to do so—and since Levi made them both, they might well have been. They’re made for each other.

Corvo pushes up and swings himself on top of Levi, slotting their legs together as he goes. There’s no good way, no time, for anything slower or gentler than this. But this is enough, it’s more than enough. Levi’s real. He’s physically there, warm body under Corvo, cold augmented arms wrapping around Corvo’s shoulders.

The metal of Levi’s thigh is unyielding as Corvo grinds against him. Friction, pressure—it’s so good, better than a hand alone in the dark. Levi’s shaky moans and tiny whimpers would seem performative if Corvo didn’t know that this is Levi’s first experience with someone else. As it is he’s beautiful, writhing on the floor as Corvo bites a mark into his collarbone. Through the virtual connection Corvo can hear him begging for more, the connection flickering and wavering as Levi stops and starts with every touch.

With an almost audible snap the tension breaks. Corvo pushes just slightly too hard and Levi moans, shuddering under him. His silver irises disappear and the sound, the expression, is enough to shove Corvo over the edge too. For him it’s a gasp and a shaking collapse, full weight atop Levi, who doesn’t protest. Instead, he holds Corvo tighter, pinning him in place with augmented strength.

For a long while, as the beats of their borrowed hearts synchronize and the sweat dries on physical skin, they stay together in silence.

 

***

 

Levi’s fingers trail over Corvo’s chest, tracing the curves and welts of scars. He’s pressed against Corvo’s side, head on Corvo’s shoulder; the faint rasp of his shaved hair on Corvo’s skin is pleasant. “I watched you for a long time without knowing who you were,” he says. “You came to Dunwall not long after I was born and made your name as I was entering the virtual world. But your rise…it wasn’t a concern to me. Not until I thought I could use you. And then you stripped me of my assumptions and spun the world upside down, and suddenly I didn’t want to use you anymore. I wanted…other things. I didn’t know what to expect from you.”

_Underwhelming, am I?_ For once, Corvo is glad he lacks a physical voice. He can turn his head and kiss Levi’s forehead without worrying about speech.

“No,” Levi murmurs, shivering lightly at the touch. “When you boarded that train to Karnaca, when I watched the sun rise through your eyes and realized that you would physically stand before me soon, that you would see through the virtual mask I’ve so carefully painted…I was afraid. I was afraid you would look at me and think of me what you thought of all those men who were your targets. I was afraid that I would disappoint you.”

_I could never have been disappointed._

Levi gazes at him. “You know me best as a ghost in the machine,” he says softly. “What do you think of me, when you see the body the ghost left behind?”

Corvo meets his black eyes without flinching. Inside, the silver irises shrink and expand minutely, hypnotically. _I think you’re the same man._

With a helpless laugh, Levi buries his face in Corvo’s neck again. “Both our worlds are real, you know. Physical and virtual. But the virtual world is all a lie. The physical world is where the truth happens. I have been living a lie, a beautiful lie, for _so long_. That’s what you know, what you—”

_This truth is better_. Corvo carefully tilts Levi’s chin up and kisses him, continuing to speak inside Levi’s head. _The lie you tell, the simulacrum, your ghost, that’s not what I fell in love with. You aren’t dead, Levi, you’re here. You’re true._

It’s not comfortable, to lie there on the floor of the server room. Corvo’s clothes have buckles and belts and the floor is cold. But neither man is inclined to move much, not yet. Corvo holds Levi close, Levi’s augmented arms wrapped around him, their legs tangled.

He happens to glance up at one of the monitors and realizes that it’s a security camera feed of this very room. Looking down at them from above, like closed parentheses on the floor. Levi is long and thin and pale, arms and legs slashes of black on Corvo’s darker, less augmented body. He looks back at himself with strange eyes, reflecting the light of the monitors. They’re both bathed in it, the faint light in an ocean of black.

And the faint humming of computers and the whirring of fans is everywhere. The only human sound is the heartbeat under Corvo’s hand. Still…is it even human, when he knows that Levi’s replaced his biological heart with something mechanical?

Yes, Corvo decides. The human isn’t in the body, isn’t in the physical makeup. It’s in the mind, in the ideas, the actions and thoughts. And those are all Levi.

In his arms, Levi is shaking again. Corvo can taste tears in his mouth. So Levi hasn’t removed his ability to cry, then. What a strange piece of the physical body to keep. Somehow, Corvo is glad. He’s glad to know that his strange ghost, this being of the Void, trusts him to see this too-solid flesh. He’s glad that Levi still exists.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot how insatiable these two are...

They dress, and Levi gets Corvo a shower. He feels clean for the first time in days, and free enough to dispense with a heavy coat or even his jacket in the temperature-controlled environment. According to Levi, the bunker is sealed to the outside: when the doors are closed, absolutely nothing goes in or out.

“Not even data,” he says, “let alone physical bodies.”

Corvo shakes his head. _How do you get food?_

Levi casts him a grin and Corvo, helpless, smiles back. He’s so much more…vivid, in person. Not careless or soft: all of him has sharp edges. “I do leave sometimes. Sunlight is…pleasant. I never go further than the tram station at the base of the peak, though. It doesn’t take much to order an automated delivery and retrieve it, so…”

 _Clever_. Corvo leans against the wall. Levi is back to sitting in front of his monitoring station, where Corvo joined him after his shower. _And how do you, one man all by himself, manage this whole bunker? Do you run around looking at every screen…?_

“No,” Levi says, turning to Corvo in visible surprise. “Of course not.”

_Alarms and redirects, then?_

“Oh no,” Levi says. “I don’t need them. This body isn’t all of me. This whole complex…every computer, every system under Shindaerey Peak… _that_ is my body.”

So the mountain…it really is breathing.

Corvo stares at the man in front of him, remembering the way the lights flickered when he was upset, remembering how the world seemed to slow and stop when he was drifting away. _How did you do it?_

Levi’s smile is faint. “Come with me.”

He leads Corvo through the maze of halls and rooms of the bunker. At a pair of double doors, Levi shoves one open, the muscles of his shoulders straining. He steps inside and beckons Corvo after him, and when Corvo crosses the threshold he freezes.

There’s an eye looking at him from the wall, glazed and dull, red as if it’s a huge ruby with a great darkness behind it. There’s a strange spark deep inside of it. It’s huge, the stone around it chipped away to reveal it, as though a whole face or even a body lies beneath the peak. It’s not looking at Corvo, yet he feels as if it’s seeing through him.

“The Eye of the Dead God,” Levi says. “An artifact of the same civilization that left us the whales, when they departed. It taught me the basics of their language, though I’m still learning. It taught me secrets that no one else has been able to replicate. I adapted the Blink augments from their ancient technologies. I learned a little of the whales, from it…perhaps my greatest achievement, though I haven’t made contact yet.” He presses his palm against the surface of the eye and there’s a faint flare of light.

_It was always the whales. Is that why you love them?_

Levi’s voice is very soft as he gazes into the Eye of the Dead God. His hand is steady on its surface. “No. I loved them long before I knew their secrets.”

One moment of silence stretches into a second. Finally Corvo sends another message. _The Mark is in the language the Eye taught you, isn’t it?_

“I don’t know what it symbolizes,” Levi says. He turns from the eye, framed by its iris. His eyes, Corvo notices, bear a strange resemblance to the ancient artifact. “But it’s my name now. I have no other that matters.”

Looking at Levi, Corvo sees what he hadn’t before. He’s not dealing with someone who’s only human after all. He’s dealing with someone…much bigger.

Really, he might be dealing with a god.

 

***

 

It’s high time that Levi explained himself to Corvo. And he does, while they eat a spare dinner together in the surprisingly small and oddly cozy kitchen. The table is shoved against the wall in a corner and their ankles are tangled together as they sit—not that Corvo minds. And he just listens, listens as Levi talks like he’s never opened his mouth before, taking it all in.

He’s thirty-six years old or so, born about the time that Corvo first came to Dunwall, and not in Karnaca. Levi claims he’s never found out exactly where, only that it was “a crumbling black city” where he lived on the street, an orphan. He was just a beggar, a boy with no shoes. In the end he was found only because he incautiously played with systems not meant for child’s eyes. Little Levi was a prodigy even then and the people who found him recognized it. Instead of raising him up, they did something worse.

They had been looking for a long time for a child to use, someone who had the potential to contact the eyes they were convinced looked down from beyond the sky. It was all about the whales, even then. And when Levi fell into their hands, they had the perfect test subject.

“I was a prototype for the experiments that would eventually almost kill you,” Levi says, taking Corvo’s hand across the table. “They tried to hack into my brain, to…make it theirs, to turn it to their ends. And I said nothing, I only…watched and waited. I knew what was coming, and I only had one chance to survive.”

They made the mistake of letting him into their systems, to see what he could do when he was so deeply hooked in. What none of them realized was that Levi was using more than the systems they allowed him. He took permissions he shouldn’t have been granted and built backdoors, wired himself directly into their security systems. In the Month of Darkness, he decided he’d had enough. With their limited technology, Levi had found his own way to perform miracles. He broke himself out—just as he would later break Corvo out of Coldridge—and ran.

“I became what they wanted,” he says bitterly, and gestures at his face. “Look at me now. Eyes drained of color, the beggar no more.”

The ancient war bunker under Shindaerey Peak was easy to access, for someone with his skill, and it wasn’t a place anyone would look for him. So he broke in and locked the doors behind him, hiding in a place quiet as the night. It was full of ancient systems, for monitoring the weather and controlling weapons and surveillance satellites and more, many of which could still connect to the outside world. And that was when he had gone into the Void.

It was at the behest of OVERSEER that the procedures had been performed on the boy, and so he had decided that OVERSEER would be his target. He would find a way to tear the singularity apart. The Eye of the Dead God helped him, let him interface with the virtual world in a way no one ever had before, and he began to marshal his forces to go on the offensive.

“I became the whisper in silence,” Levi says. He gazes at Corvo. “And I began to speak to those who would hear me. The woman I once knew. Daud. Delilah, though she doesn’t come into this story. The rat boy, who carried the Weeper virus first. To Granny Rags…though you know how that went. And finally to you and Emily.”

All the while he was changing himself. Rebuilding his body. He cut off his own limbs and replaced them, and occasionally had help, but not meaningful help. For twenty years, he’s been locked in this bunker under the mountain. Alone. All alone.

By the time the story is done, Levi’s not looking at Corvo. He's staring blankly at the top of the table, arms wrapped around himself. And for just a moment Corvo isn't looking at some terrifying demigod. He's looking at a lost, frightened boy who hasn't seen the sun in years, whose only gentle touch in perhaps his whole life was from Corvo mere hours ago.

Corvo comes to stand behind Levi and wraps him in his arms. Levi shivers and leans back, the stool he sits on faintly creaking. He trusts Corvo not to let him fall.

"I didn't want to be this way, when I was young," Levi says at last. "I dreamed of being...I don't even remember, now."

No matter how he wishes it, Corvo can't turn back time. He can't make this right. He can only be here, with Levi. _You'll have the chance to remember when this is over._

Levi shakes his head. "Those dreams are dead." He twists around and looks up at Corvo, black eyes shining in the dim blue light. "I just…I know what I dream about now. Who I dream about."

When he reaches up to pull Corvo down into a kiss, Corvo doesn't try to resist. On the contrary: he goes gladly. If he's honest with himself, the only dreams he has anymore are of the Void, of the virtual realm only he can see, of the lonely man inhabiting that realm. Of his Outsider.

His unaugmented hand brushes over Levi’s side, feeling the fragile ribs pressed against too-human skin. A hitch of breath is his reward, and Corvo smiles into the kiss. _You like that, don’t you?_

“You like this too much,” Levi accuses, hand lingering cold on Corvo’s neck.

_Too much?_

“Giving without taking.”

Corvo drags the tips of his fingers along Levi’s side and watches silver irises widen with surprised desire. _And if I like it?_

Levi swings all the way around, so Corvo is standing between his legs. “Then I’m sure I’ll like it just as much, watching you fall apart,” he says.

That’s all the warning Corvo gets before Levi leans forward and presses a careful kiss to Corvo’s sternum. His hands come to rest on Corvo’s lower back, holding him still—not that Corvo would ever move, not now. Corvo holds Levi’s shoulders, tension stringing through his whole body as Levi kisses his way over the muscles of Corvo’s stomach. They’re dry, light, tantalizing. Corvo imagines where else Levi might go and shivers.

“Now that I like,” Levi says, words spoken into Corvo’s skin.

_Tell me you have a bed._

“Do I seem like the kind of person who doesn’t sleep? No, don’t answer that. Of course I do.”

Corvo doesn’t appreciate having to walk through half a mountain to reach Levi’s bed, but honestly even with augments his back won’t deal with a single minute more of lying on the floor. And besides, Levi is visibly excited.

In his room he presses Corvo back, onto the bed. Corvo is surprised by Levi’s strength, although he shouldn’t be. Levi holds Corvo’s wrists over his head, kneeling astride him. He leans down and kisses Corvo, eyes open. _I can’t stop looking_ , Corvo admits. _Your eyes…_

“Mechanical.”

 _Incredible_.

Levi kisses him, presumably to shut him up, and Corvo lets it go. He wants to groan when Levi bears down on him, hips rolling smoothly. Never mind silence, he has to ask: _What did you do to your spine to bend like that!?_

“Made it better,” Levi breathes. He sounds like he’s breathing straight oxygen, ecstatic. “Made it right. The way it should be.”

Corvo would respond but he can’t manage to compose a message. Levi is still pushing down on him, having traded Corvo’s careful touches for overwhelming closeness. They’re barely moving, but every move Levi makes is enough to make Corvo feel like his heart will stop. He opens his mouth, as if to make a sound, but he can’t—

Levi’s hands are on his face now, cold hands warming on Corvo’s neck, hot mouth against his cheek. His ribs should crack under Corvo’s hands but they don’t; their hearts are beating in time again, synchronized not by artifice but by simple closeness. Corvo tries to return the pleasure, to respond to Levi’s unbearably steady rhythm.

It doesn’t even matter that they’re both still half dressed. Levi might as well have Corvo spread out under him, stripped bare; Corvo is just as helpless. He can feel the tension building, feel heat pooling between his legs, is so close—

—and Levi stops moving.

_What!?_

“We’re not done,” Levi says, drawing back a little. And there’s the Outsider again, haughty, arrogant, and Corvo thinks he might simply pass out. One of Levi’s fingers draws across Corvo’s lips and on instinct Corvo chases it, sucking the metal, the faintly metallic taste making him shudder. Levi sighs, eyes fluttering closed, the rest of his fingers closing around Corvo’s jaw.

He palms Corvo with his free hand and Corvo would have opened his mouth in an attempt to cry out but for Levi’s fingers, locked around his jaw, keeping it closed. A second finger slips into Corvo’s mouth and he welcomes it, pushing his tongue between them, the slick sounds filling the room.

The world is going hazy, Corvo’s awareness centered on the fingers dragging in and out of his mouth and the endless pressure pinning him to the bed. Levi’s breathing stutters, shudders; when Corvo meets his eyes, he sees irises are blown so wide they almost don’t exist, eyes pitch-black.

Levi rolls his hips one more time and Corvo’s world shorts into a blue screen, everything disconnecting. He bucks hard enough to push Levi as he sinks down and the meeting is enough, enough to make Levi cry out. His head throws back and Corvo feels warm, sticky wetness spilling between them as Levi collapses down on top of him.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, two atmospheric smut chapters out of the way...back to plot land!

There’s work Levi has to do, and Corvo follows him. While Levi sits motionless at his apparent favorite work station, Corvo occupies the unused desk and sifts through the millions of silvergraphs Levi keeps in his memory banks. These black-and-white plates, scans of physical images, have been his most reliable contact with the outside world for who knows how long? They’re beautiful, but they don’t do anything justice.

Finally, there’s a sigh. Levi blinks open his eyes and smiles when he sees Corvo. “You could have gone and done something else.”

_I’d have gotten lost in your mountain. Eventually I’ll learn my way around._

“You know I can’t keep you here forever,” Levi says, gazing at Corvo with an inscrutable expression. “As much as I want to…but you have a daughter you need to return to.”

_She’s doing fine. You picked up on that, right?_

Levi inclines his head. He blinks and a visual of Emily talking to Havelock and Pendleton appears in front of them, blue and translucent. “Still negotiating the best way to get back into the tower, but I think we both know that Emily is not one to step back and let the Loyalists do her work for her.”

Corvo smiles. He’s never been more proud of his daughter. _I could stay._

“It’s not your job to save me from loneliness,” Levi says. “And I’m not lonely, Corvo, that would mean I have some desire for human companionship.”

_Really. You don’t._

Of course Levi brushes right past that. Reclined in his chair, he looks like a king ensconced in a throne. His augmented limbs are wired in, every single one, to the chains of cables that form the hardware network under the peak. Rather than looking trapped, he looks utterly at ease. “You have to go. And…if you do, I’d be able to follow you soon enough.”

_To Dunwall?_ He wonders if the sharpness of his surprise got through on the message. Tone doesn’t always carry well, but perhaps the way he sat up and looked at Levi got it across.

“Your crusade has put Dunwall in a deeply precarious position,” Levi says. “I plan to wrap up my loose ends here while Emily consolidates her control of Kaldwin Enterprises. If she does that, there will be someone with enough control over the city that it’s possible Dunwall and the Isles won’t collapse. And then I can take on my real target, and fragment the singularity at last.”

Corvo watches him for a long, long moment. There’s something Levi isn’t saying. Behind the simulacrum he can pretend, but not in the physical world. He has tells. _Why don’t you want me here?_

Levi looks away. “I want you here,” he says, and that Corvo believes. Even so, that isn’t the whole truth. “But you have to go.”

Slowly, Corvo rises to his feet. He crosses the room, feeling like he’s carrying the weight of the entire mountain on his shoulders, to stand beside Levi. He leans down to kiss the hacker’s forehead. Levi sighs, small and soft. His hand catches Corvo’s, metal around flesh, and holds.

“Believe me,” Levi says. “I don’t want you to go.”

_I believe you._

Levi looks up at him. “Why?”

Startled, Corvo blinks. _Why not?_

“I lied to you about what I was. Not just that I’m physical—but that I was altruistic. Why do you believe me now?”

_I’m looking at you_. Corvo’s eyes trace the line of a black cable that sweeps over Levi’s chest and down to hook into one of his legs. _It’s different, when it’s physical._

“Oh?”

_Said it yourself. It’s all real. But your simulacrum is a lie. The physical world is where the truth happens._

Lips press lightly against the back of Corvo’s hand. “I should really stop talking to you,” Levi says meditatively. “You have far too good a memory. You keep remembering the things I say at very inconvenient times.”

 

***

 

The train back to Dunwall feels emptier, though Corvo occupies a similar compartment as the one he took to Karnaca. The parting was fast. Neither of them were really interested in drawing out the goodbye: it was a kiss, and then the blast doors closed, and Corvo was alone again in the searing Karnaca sun. He made the trek back to the station alone, lost in his thoughts. And now he’s on a bullet train, hurtling home to Dunwall.

A screen overhead projects news into the empty car. Riots across Dunwall, the streets aflame, citizen against citizen. OVERSEER’s servers are safe for now, but the chaos is spreading. The word that OVERSEER was responsible for the Weeper virus is going to tear Dunwall apart if someone doesn’t assume command quickly.

That person ought to be Emily.

But there’s no mention of her in any broadcast.

Corvo arms himself and readies for a fight. Something is wrong, very wrong, and he berates himself for leaving. For abandoning Emily in the moment of her need.

Getting back to the Hounds Pits means navigating through chaos only on the east side of the river. The wealthier parts of Dunwall are still largely intact; people here haven’t been affected by the virus, and their wealth is in OVERSEER’s hands. They’ll be the last to riot—and they’re also the ones paying most of the city’s law enforcement. On the east side, even, there’s significant security—that is, after all, where OVERSEER’s server hub is located.

He gets to the Hounds Pits as the storm briefly begins to clear. Whale song echoes through the city faintly; one of them must be circling nearby. Corvo glances up as he stops at the door, but he can’t see it. Still, it feels like something of a benediction.

When he comes in the door, Havelock, Pendleton, and Martin are all sitting at the bar. Curiously, Lydia isn’t present. Corvo surveys the room—everyone else must be elsewhere. Still, his hackles are up. It feels like all isn’t well here.

“Ah, the man of the hour!” Havelock says jovially. He raises his glass. “Well done!”

Corvo inclines his head. “Not just me,” the surrogate voice says as Corvo sits down at a table.

“Miss Kaldwin did very well indeed,” Pendleton says.

“Where is she?”

Pendleton shrugs. “Off with Samuel, consolidating her resources. There’s a lot to do, and as I’m sure you’re aware she’s quite the independent woman.”

Corvo smiles at that. “She is. So where do we go from here?”

Martin snaps his fingers, calling for another drink. The automated systems behind the bar whirr to life, and again it seems odd without Lydia there. It seems artificial, unreal. “We wait on Emily to bring everything together, and then we go to Dunwall Tower. OVERSEER will be amicable to us, I think, as long as we all demonstrate our dedication to order and the restoration of the status quo.”

Privately, Corvo thinks that perhaps Emily would take offense to that, but he’s not stupid enough to say a single word of those thoughts aloud. “In that case…we celebrate.”

Martin slides off his bar stool and comes to hand Corvo the glass. His smile is easy, open, and friendly. It’s a nice change from his normal demeanor. “To new beginnings,” he says, raising his glass.

Corvo follows suit and drinks. It’s good, as ever: the old vintages that the bar would never have had without the Loyalists stocking it. He stays at the table, contributing little to the conversation, as the three men discuss their futures and their profits off this whole venture. Businessmen, one and all, the kind of people Corvo has always held in some kind of disdain. But good men, who’ve helped from start to finish in saving Emily and bringing Burrows down.

He must be more tired than he thought, because his eyes are getting heavy and he’s starting to feel outright drunk. Corvo tries to shake off the dizziness, but when he rises he staggers and barely catches himself on the back of a chair. He hears voices, but can’t place them. His vision is going into a tunnel, spots swirling in on him, and then—

The next memory he has is of rough hands, and falling, and striking water, and—

—sinking—


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst! Hope! Daud! A final smut scene because we're almost at the end of this story! How the fuck are we almost at the end! Help!

Somehow Corvo is utterly calm upon waking. He’s not in the water, though the faint smell of polluted water still hangs in the air. The room is unfamiliar: old stone, not metal; walls stripped absolutely bare with not a wire or camera in sight. The bed isn’t sterile, but it’s clean. This is no operating garage.

He takes stock. No missing limbs. Faculties intact, though he notices some of his finer motor control is off when he flexes his augmented fingers. His body aches; not surprising, given that he thinks he got thrown off a bridge into the Wrenhaven. It’s the only explanation.

The Loyalists must have drugged him. They think he’s a liability or something, so they disposed of him. That does beg the question of where Corvo is right now, and who has him. And where Emily is…

Perhaps he was a little slow on waking.

If they did this to him, they could have done the same to Emily.

Corvo makes it three steps before his legs give out entirely and he crashes to the floor.

The door opens and a man Corvo never thought he’d have to see again walks in. “You aren’t going anywhere,” Daud says brusquely. He helps Corvo up and back into bed.

_Where’s Emily?_ The connection is fuzzy, going in and out a little, but the messages go through.

“Got my Whalers looking for her,” Daud says. He stands by the foot of the bed, watching Corvo closely. “Pub’s empty. The little odd-jobs intelligence—”

_Cecelia._

“Yeah, her. Told us they drugged you, and that she doesn’t know where Emily is.”

_Was Lydia there?_

Daud shrugs. “Looks like they tried to wipe the systems. Not all the intelligences made it.”

A dull pain throbs to life. Lydia…he’d liked her. Thought she could maybe even make it, when they went back to Dunwall Tower. Corvo nods and looks away. _Drugs shouldn’t keep me down this long._

“They hit you with a virus, too. Not bad, but it knocked your systems out. Good thing we had some advance warning so we could go get you.”

_How did you…_ Corvo pauses. _Right._ He’d almost forgotten that he’s not alone in his head. That he does have someone watching him, always. _Why save me? You don’t get anything out of it._

“I owe you.” Daud’s voice is final, hard and cold. He doesn’t like paying up this debt.

Corvo thinks of Jessamine, and the fact that Daud is going out of his way to rescue the rest of Jessamine’s family. _Consider us even_.

“Not sure we ever will be,” Daud says, surprisingly soft. His face is unreadable. “You haven’t killed a single damn person in all your time. Put a few men in the hospital, caused some chaos…no death. Not one. Why?”

Corvo manages a minute shrug. _Didn’t see the point of killing more people. Enough die already._

“If you hadn’t survived so long in this city, I’d call you naïve,” Daud says. He shakes his head and folds his arms. “Don’t know what to call you now.”

They’re silent, for a while. Corvo thinks about all the things he’s dealt with, that he thought this was over and he could begin to heal. But Emily is gone again and the ending he sought is so far out of reach. And he can’t do anything.

Corvo turns his face to the wall, unable to continue any kind of conversation now.

What more is there to say?

 

***

 

The door opens. Corvo doesn’t bother to open his eyes. _Unless you’re here to reprogram me to get me back on my feet—_

“That is, in fact, exactly why I’m here.”

He sits up so fast he almost falls over. There, standing at the foot of the bed, sardonic smile on his lips and black eyes practically dancing with mirth, is Levi. He’s dressed like his simulacrum, covering most of his augmentations. The only giveaway of his nature is in his black eyes. _What are you doing here?_

The hacker smiles and comes around the bed, pulling up a chair. “I told you I’d come to Dunwall, and when I realized the trouble you were in I merely…moved things along more quickly.”

_And you didn’t bother to warn me about the Loyalists._

Levi has the grace to look mildly abashed as he starts pulling cables out of his pockets and hooking himself up to Corvo. “I didn’t catch on because none of them are on the Hounds Pits LAN, they consider it too dangerous. I had no idea until they started wiping systems, and by then all I could do was tell Daud to go find you…”

Corvo watches programs appear around them, spinning three-dimensional representations of lines of code. Levi watches them intently as they rush past, seeing only he knows what. _What does the virus do, exactly?_

“It’s not the Weeper, it’s merely some kind of…ugh, it’s blocking most of your basic augment functions, not enough to shut down all programs but enough to give you a…I’m going to have to reboot most of your systems.” Levi’s expression is flat. “Blink will be down, strength, agility, and stamina will be down, augmented vision will be down…oh, small mercies, I can keep messaging on. Wonderful.”

_Well, that’s fine_. Corvo shrugs. He can almost smile, with Levi here. There’s a little flame of hope burning inside him again, the idea that maybe—just maybe—it will be all right. _I can’t do anything anyway, so I might as well enjoy this while it lasts._

“Oh?” Levi raises an eyebrow as he disconnects the cords holding them together.

_Get up here_. Corvo holds out an arm, offering.

Levi doesn’t hesitate. Yanking off his shirt, he climbs onto the narrow bed. “We’re going to have to be creative,” he says, as Corvo spreads his legs slightly to let Levi slide between them. Now Levi is on top of him, their bare bodies pressed together, close as physically possible.

Gently, enjoying every shiver, Corvo curls his unaugmented hand around the back of Levi’s neck, holding him as he meets Corvo in an open-mouthed kiss. Levi’s hand wraps around Corvo’s wrist, stroking down his arm from wrist to elbow, and it’s Corvo’s turn to shudder. He opens his eyes, pressing his forehead to Levi’s, and for a long moment they simply stare at each other, breathing.

_What do you want?_

“I’ve told you before,” Levi says. “You.”

_Why me?_

“Because you exist,” Levi says simply. “You are beautiful in your simplicity. You have no secrets, no simulacrum. You are what you are and I _want_ that. You…make me feel like this body belongs to me. Like I’m real.”

Corvo’s fingers brush through the short hair at the nape of Levi’s neck and gets a small sigh in response. _You’ve always been real to me._

Levi doesn’t answer, only kisses Corvo again, ardent. Hand on Corvo’s jaw, implacable metal keeping him in place. It’s frigidly cold, making Corvo’s neck prickle. And his neck is hot under Corvo’s mouth when Corvo kisses him on the scar slashed through his skin, where his first implant sits. Levi gasps.

“You’re planning to ruin me.”

_Do you want me to stop?_

“No.”

Corvo’s teeth close on Levi’s collarbone and Levi bucks, held in place by Corvo’s hands. He kisses the spot and gets a shiver in response. A hand is tangled in his hair, pulling lightly; it’s a demand for more, and Corvo is happy to give.

_Turn us over,_ he commands, and Levi complies. It’s helpful, having augmented bodies: they aren’t quite as limited by frail human bones. Now he's straddling Levi, pinning him down, and Levi's hips twist under him, helpless. Black eyes meet his, silver irises still, and Corvo for just a moment wonders what Levi sees when he looks up.

And then he dismisses the thought and leans to bite lightly on the tender spot right under Levi’s left ear, where the curve of his jaw begins. There’s no connection point or port here, to Corvo’s surprise and pleasure; the deliriously happy sound Levi makes says that he’s glad of the decision not to augment there as well.

Corvo follows the curve of his neck to the slope of his shoulder. For all that he lives a sedentary life, Levi is well-defined and strong: it takes work and health, to so constantly change a body. Corvo can feel the strength of him, when his muscle tenses as Corvo lightly bites at him, leaving no mark at all. And then he mouths at the place where augmentation meets flesh, sensitive, as he knows well.

“You’re going to kill me,” Levi says in a half-broken voice.

Corvo pauses and looks up. _Should I stop?_

“No,” Levi says. “Everywhere. Kiss me everywhere. Make me real.”

It feels like Corvo’s heart has been ripped out of him again. He reaches out and takes Levi’s hand, metal scraping metal, dragging them both back to the world of the physical again.

When Corvo kisses Levi’s sternum, he feels an augmentation, some connection point, as if his ribs have all been replaced. They probably have been, to strengthen and solidify the connections for his arm and leg augmentations. How many of his bones are simply gone? What’s left of his organic framework? Is it all hardware, x86, meant to speed his removal into the virtual world?

Every rib, the muscles of his stomach, his arms and hands—Corvo lavishes his attention on Levi until the man is a wreck, eyes flickering in and out, hands clenched so tightly on Corvo’s shoulders that he may be leaving bruises. Corvo doesn’t care.

He flips Levi over on his stomach, pressing him against the bed. Letting go gets him a small noise of irritated disapproval which quickly turns to a sound of pained delight when Corvo nips at the back of his neck. _Hush,_ Corvo chastises. _This building echoes_.

“Let them hear,” Levi manages.

_As you wish._ Even as he speaks, Corvo deliberately traces the ragged edge of Levi’s left-arm augmentation with his tongue, where the plates sprawl out over his shoulder blade, perhaps replacing his shoulder blade. And then, as Levi arches under him, Corvo bites down on the soft skin over his spine. Levi cries out, voice echoing around the room. His body twists as Corvo repeats the action, holding Levi still with a nearly bruising grip on his sides.

Hand on Levi’s thigh, Corvo slides down and lightly, so lightly, bites just above the point where Levi’s augmented leg joins his body. He hears a faint moan and then, suddenly, the connection goes dark. As if Levi just passed out.

Corvo looks up. _Are you with me?_

Levi stares back at him, uncomprehending, and it takes a moment before he says, voice rough, “I lost the connection. I…I’m reconnecting, I…”

He leaves a hand on the unyielding metal of Levi’s thigh. It seems to ground his hacker, bring him out of the Void a little more. _At least I know I'm doing this right._

In reply he gets a half-amused snort as Levi slumps boneless, face-down in the covers. “Very funny. You couldn’t do any better.”

For a moment, Corvo thinks about that. It’s good that Levi is happy, but at the same time…he might just be able to do more. The bed creaks as he moves, back on top of Levi, holding him down. He sees Levi’s eyes flutter shut, a slow smile on his face. He seems to like this, to be held. Corvo is happy to oblige. He waits just a moment before kissing Levi’s cheek and messaging,

_I think I could. How much more do you want?_

For a moment, Levi hesitates. And then he minutely shakes his head. “I think I’d actually die,” he says. “I wish…but another time. This is good. This is _better_ than good.”

Corvo smiles. He doesn’t say anything else, just folds himself around Levi as best he can, figuring out how to pull the blanket over them. He knows, and he thinks Levi knows, that this won’t last. That there might not be a next time. They can pretend, though. They can lie here in their simulacrum of reality and pretend that they’re all right, that tomorrow will be physical reality.


	27. Chapter 27

“We found her,” Daud says, striding through the door. The motion lights flare on and Corvo squints. “Get up and get dressed.”

Corvo sends Daud a murderous look. _Don’t wake him up._ Levi is asleep on him, breathing deep and regular, calm and relaxed for the first time since they met.

Daud snorts. “He’s kept me up often enough. Fair’s fair.”

Levi makes a small, cross sound and turns his face into Corvo’s shoulder, hiding from the light. “I was slightly less rude.”

Ignoring Daud thoroughly, Corvo kisses Levi gently. _We should get moving._

After a final system diagnostic, Levi declares Corvo fit for action. He’s still putting on his gear as he follows Daud and a now-dressed Levi into the hub of the Whaler operations room. Daud has a map pulled up, visible to all three of them with their shared network and augmented vision, a three-dimensional model that only they can see. He taps a point on it, which flashes red. “Kingsparrow Island, the old light house.”

“Past the retaining wall,” Levi says softly. “They must be serious indeed.”

Corvo starts checking over his weapons. His words broadcast up on screens, messages appearing as text for the people not linked in to Levi’s miniature network. _How do I get there?_

Levi paces around the room, hands folded behind his back. Corvo watches his thoughts swirl out into the room, maps and travel brochures and instructions and blueprints and data spreadsheet, a stream of data. Levi’s thoughts cast in three dimensions, an existence that can be seen only in the Void. Beautiful. “There is an abandoned highway bridge. Declared unsafe and left to drown. Remaining intact systems indicate that the bridge is still structurally sound. If you have transportation—”

_I’ll walk if I have to._

“Too slow,” Samuel says suddenly. The old man looks keenly at Corvo. “I don’t pretend to understand everything going on here. But I’ve seen things through this far, and my old car is in fine enough shape to carry you.”

“It’s dangerous outside the retaining wall without a ship or some kind of cover,” Daud says.

Samuel shrugs laconically. “I’ve been in danger since I took up with the Loyalists,” he says. “Can’t get worse now. ’sides, I don’t want to leave Emily in a lurch.”

Corvo squeezes the old man’s shoulder tight. _Thank you._

They don’t have any more time to waste. With Emily found, urgency gets into all their movements. Samuel fuels up the taxi, checking it over to make sure it will be able to handle the weather on the highway bridge, beyond the retaining wall. The bridge should be covered, but still—no guarantees can really be made about any of this. Daud offers Corvo the use of his own armory, though he doesn’t offer to go himself; Corvo rather understands that. He wouldn’t want the wetworker along, besides.

No long goodbyes for them, any of them. Corvo shakes Daud’s hand, and pauses just to look at Levi for a moment. _I’m glad you came._

“The same,” Levi says. “Good luck.”

_I’ll take it._ Corvo leans in and kisses Levi, just a quick peck.

“Everyone is wrong about you,” Levi says as Corvo withdraws. “You’re not a pawn. If you’ll pardon the chess metaphors…you’re a knight. A piece in the game, yes, but not of the rank and file. Moving unexpectedly, striking in gambits that confuse and surprise.”

_And fascinate, if you’re to be believed._

Levi smiles. “Go save your daughter, Corvo.”

 

***

 

No one stops them as the little taxi drives out beyond the retaining wall, onto the abandoned highway bridge. Corvo isn’t wearing his mask: it truly doesn’t matter now. As they cross out beyond the unmanned gate onto the protected bridge, the sea is revealed in all its terrible glory.

The wind and waves alike are iron-gray, the sea rising and falling as it crashes endlessly against the wall and the bridge. The waves are white-capped, spray mixing with rain as the storm pummels the wall from above. Clouds boil and ripple with lightning. Between the booming of the waves, the roar of wind, and the snarling thunder, the sounds of the car are drowned out entirely.

Under the car the bridge shakes and rocks. The road’s surface is cracked and the protective cover is broken in some places, letting in the water. There are no lights but the dim light outside and the taxi’s headlights. Corvo’s sure that it won’t collapse—he trusts Levi’s assessment—but still, the swaying is almost nauseating. Samuel is unperturbed, though. When the sound abates even a little, Corvo hears him humming his old sea shanties.

At the end of the highway bridge, they find themselves on the highest point of Kingsparrow Island. The old lighthouse stands tall and proud, despite the fact that the ocean is slowly chewing away at the foundations of the island. And at the top, there are lights that haven’t been seen in decades.

There’s a covered parking garage, and Samuel pulls in. Other vehicles, mostly old and rusted out, are parked in corners; there are a couple of newer vehicles, which must belong to the Loyalists. Although it’s still loud, the noise is muted, and Corvo can hear again.

“Guess this is where I leave you,” Samuel says, turning around in his seat. “Good luck up there, and tell Emily I’ve got faith in her. Won’t want much to do with me, later. And I wouldn’t be much good up the high circles of the city.”

_It’s been good working with you_. Corvo’s message projects onto a screen at the front of the taxi, and Samuel smiles as he reads it.

“I like you, Corvo. You’re sharp. Somehow managed to pull out of all of this knowing what’s important. Treat everyone the same, rich or poor, physical or intelligence. I respect that.”

Samuel offers his hand and Corvo shakes it. _I won’t see you after this, will I?_

“No, I’d best be going,” Samuel says. “I did my part when I was Emily’s age, you know. When OVERSEER rose. I was a rioter, out there on the streets. And now I’ve been your driver, helped you get around while you fought the good fight. Done some good, I guess, as much as one man can when he doesn’t have money or fame.”

_Done more good than most. At least you tried to put out the fires._

The old driver smiles. “As long as there are men like us and women like Emily, I don’t think Dunwall will burn to ashes. Get going, Corvo. You’ve got one more job to do.”

Corvo stands in the garage and watches as Samuel turns the taxi and drives away, the taillights of his car red as they fade onto the highway bridge. He played a great role in the whole thing, and Corvo had barely noticed him until the end. Still…he’ll miss the man.

And then, when the taxi is out of sight, Corvo turns and heads for the lighthouse.

This place was a fort, long ago; the ruins aren’t particularly historic, and Dunwall is doing its best to flee its past as fast as it possibly can. The lighthouse, a modern structure, towers over the fort. It hasn’t been lit in decades, but it is now. There are guards, unexpectedly. Must have been on the Loyalists’ payroll all along. Arc pylons and walls of light, too, visible even at a distance.

He surveys the whole thing from a place on the fort that’s out of visible sight. The Loyalists don’t have the skill or forethought to actually rig the place with proper surveillance. Corvo doesn’t know that for certain, of course, but any men stupid enough to poison an enemy, infect him with a virus, and dump him in a river rather than just killing him are stupid enough that certain assumptions can be made. Caught up in conspiracy, they’re too busy scheming to be sensible.

There are several paths up and the choice of which one to take is complicated by the fact that Corvo can’t pin down any particular pattern of guard movements, and he can’t ask Levi for help. He decides on a main entrance, one with exposed systems that he can knock out, and begins to make his way up. And then, out of nowhere, Wallace appears in his path.

“Sir, you need to turn back,” he says.

_Not you too._

“I’m not doing this for them,” Wallace says. His face is twisted in a very real grief. “They erased Lydia. If you go up those cables—” he points, off to the left, toward rocks where cables are moored “—you can get in without having to deal with any systems. I should know. I’m the one who monitors them.”

Corvo stares at the intelligence. _I stand by what I said. You’re a good man._

“Go,” Wallace says, and vanishes.

At a run, Corvo takes off toward the cables. It’s a trick of Blinking, flicking up and over the rocks to reach the cables. They really will take him up to the lighthouse: he won’t need to pass through the fort at all. Balance is easy, now that his agility and stability are back online. The wind only presents minor problems; Corvo’s balance adjusts easily and the force isn’t strong enough to actually knock him off. No one ever sees him run by overhead, walking the wire like the best of acrobats.

He arrives on the second level of the lighthouse, only one story below the actual light. It’s eerily silent within, and dust lies thick on the floor as he swings in a window. His footsteps echo, but Corvo doesn’t bother with stealth now. They know he’s coming without a shadow of a doubt.

At the far wall, he finds something unexpected.

Pendleton laughs wetly as Corvo crouches in front of him. The man’s been shot, by the look of it, and whoever killed him walked away and left him to die. “Come to gloat?” he asks. “Betraying you was a stupid idea, but you were always simple, weren’t you? Didn’t expect us to kill you…fool. You had every chance to see it. But then, someone who screws the most powerful woman in the Isles is a particular brand of stupid…she’s yours, isn’t she? Little Miss Emily Kaldwin, bastard daughter of a weak empress and a stupid ma—”

A gun roars and Corvo jerks back, twisting to face the new threat, as Pendleton collapses.

“He talked too much,” Emily says.

Her gun hand is shaking.

Corvo stands up and crosses the floor slowly and carefully. Emily’s face is white and there’s a nasty cut on her shoulder. She stares at him with wild eyes. _Havelock and Martin?_ Corvo asks.

“Upstairs,” Emily says. “I broke the window of the room they were keeping me in and snuck down here, killed a few guards and took their weapons…”

_We need to take care of them._

She nods. “I can’t wait.”

Together, they climb the steps. Above, Havelock is talking, monologuing, presumably to Martin. It is a little strange, hearing it, and when they come into the room Corvo sees why.

Martin is slumped over the table, dead.

Havelock is standing at the open balcony, near the edge. He’s speaking loudly, declaiming into the storm, seemingly unaware of them. Emily looks at Corvo and he nods. This is her moment.

She pulls out a knife and crosses the room, moving fast and with purpose. Corvo can’t bring himself to regret Havelock’s death. The man deserves it. Corvo has held back too long, and perhaps Emily had the right idea all along. She gets within striking distance and moves for the kill.

It all goes wrong in a moment.

Emily screams as Havelock whips around and strikes the knife from her hand. He seizes her by both wrists and suddenly they’re grappling, fighting right on the edge. Corvo races across the room and sees Havelock catch Emily across the face, watches her topple, sees Havelock turn toward the edge—

—he bends time.

His perception widens.

He has half a second more to make his decision.

Really, there’s no choice at all.

Time starts.

Corvo Blinks.

He executes Devouring Swarm and Havelock crumples, augmented systems shutting down.

And then he puts his sword right through the man’s neck.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter angst and a whooooooooooooooooole lot of exposition. And official trigger warning: at the end of the chapter there is a (thwarted) attempt at suicide. Beware.

Corvo isn’t sure how long they’re in the lighthouse. He carries Emily away from the edge, getting her inside and wrapping her in his coat. She’ll be okay, he thinks, but he’s paralyzed. He sits beside her and thinks, unable to come to any conclusions. He’s not sure where they go from here. The Loyalists held all the cards—without them, their chances are slim. And they have no allies among the Dunwall elite beyond this tower full of dead men.

The storm abates just a little, and Corvo hears footsteps on the stairs. He looks up to see the most welcome face of the day. _I didn’t expect you to come._

“I wouldn’t abandon you,” Levi says, pulling off his rain-drenched coat. His actual clothes do look a lot like those his simulacrum wears, Corvo notices; it’s almost more familiar seeing him like this. “It took more time than I wanted to get here. But it’s over for you, Corvo.”

Levi crouches on the floor in front of Corvo, one cold hand on Corvo’s cheek. He kisses Corvo’s forehead and Corvo closes his eyes in relief. _What do we do now?_

“You don’t do anything,” Levi says, rising to his feet. Corvo rises, too, and follows Levi toward the balcony door. Out there over the churning sea, they can see the retaining wall, and the skyline of Dunwall beyond. “This is in my hands now. With the Loyalists dispatched, there is _nothing_ in my way. The time of OVERSEER is over at last. My time has come.”

Corvo’s stomach lurches. He’s always known that Levi wants to destroy OVERSEER, but…this is more than that. _What do you…Levi, no. You can’t._

The hacker turns to him, eyes bright and black and brilliant. “You’re starting to see the real nature of my gestalt,” Levi says. “Does it frighten you?”

_It isn’t possible! They’ve tried uploading people before. It’s never worked._

“It’s not possible unless you have access to the Eye of the Dead God and the secrets of the whales,” Levi says. “It is beyond anyone’s reckoning, what those artifacts allow a mere human to do. Common belief claims that a snapshot of the brain is useless without a life history, without the individual experience. Given the technology I hold…I _can_ upload myself, exactly as I am, as I’ve been shaped, in a meaningful way. I will exist in the machine, but as something _greater_.”

There’s a terrifying light in Levi’s eyes.

“I’ve worked for twenty years for this moment. I locked myself into that bunker to build my strength, to use the Eye of the Dead God. Insinuated myself into OVERSEER’s systems, put myself into the Void. I watched. I assimilated. I learned. I reached out to my marked and moved my pieces in a chess game that OVERSEER never knew it played. There was a woman, my first friend, chased by OVERSEER for what I gave her. She took my first gifts and she built my first augmentations, began my transformation into something more than mortal. I would have fought OVERSEER on its own grounds if she had succeeded then, but OVERSEER caught up to her.”

Pain flashes across Levi’s face at that. Still, he goes on, unrelenting. “But she planted the seed. She gave me the understanding that my plans would have to have plans, if I was to challenge the singularity. So I began my work. Granny Rags was Vera Moray, once, a woman of high society who promised to bring me close to targets that could get me to OVERSEER. But in her obsession with me she became a risk, so I took what was mine and abandoned her. I turned to Daud, because I thought the whales held the key to the singularity, and he was chasing their secrets.”

Levi turns and paces around the room, hands clasped behind his back. For a dizzying moment Corvo only sees the simulacrum. Not the man.

“But Daud cared more for his own power than he did for the destruction of the singularity, and he fought me for control of our goals. I would have used Delilah, but she tried to stab me in the back. Daud handily took care of her, which was…effective. And then the moment came that Burrows, Campbell, and OVERSEER created their own destruction. The Weeper. It would have been their weapon against their own citizens, a success but for my intervention. I found a new pawn, my marked boy, a child like I once was. A little lost genius, I gave him the tools to turn that virus into a weapon in my hands.”

He scowls. “But the damn thing went wrong, and I lost control of it, and it became a threat even to me. I was searching for other avenues when Daud took the contract to kill Jessamine and set your feet on the path of revenge. I never anticipated that, but the Loyalists caught my eye. They had the chance to destabilize the whole city, to take advantage of the chaos and rip out the cornerstone of OVERSEER’s power. So I silently helped to break you out of Coldridge. I planted ideas in Piero’s head. I played my part as your intelligence.”

The words strike Corvo like bullets. He flinches. The truth—is painful.

Levi turns to Corvo with a beatific smile. “And finally, finally, my plan proceeded as it should have all along. Campbell fell to you, Sokolov realigned himself with me, you destroyed Burrows, you tore apart the strings holding Dunwall’s corporate aristocracy together. Chaos. Chaos that OVERSEER never saw coming and wasn’t equipped to fight. If you had failed, I would have turned to your daughter, but you didn’t fail. And now here we are. I didn’t anticipate what you would come to mean to me, but that unanticipated factor hasn’t changed these plans, and won’t derail it now. All the loose ends tying up at last. OVERSEER’s end in sight.”

At last Corvo finds his voice. _You used us all._

Dismissive, Levi shrugs. “You would have done it all anyway, one way or another. I only followed where you led. I never directed, and I never lied about what I was. You knew the entire time what I was and you could easily have guessed what I wanted. And even if you hadn’t known I was there, I would have used your actions anyway.”

He looks out the window, toward the great silver tower of the server hub back behind the retaining wall. The spotlights flicker in the storm. “And now it’s time for the final move in the game.”

_You can’t destroy OVERSEER._

“It’s the singularity,” Levi snaps, silver irises expanding and contracting. “It’s everything that’s wrong in Dunwall, in the Isles.”

Corvo grabs Levi by the shoulders. _It’s keeping the lights on, it’s running the hospitals, it’s running every augmentation in every person in the city! If you shut it down, people die!_

Levi laughs. He folds his hands behind his back, just as his simulacrum does. “I’m not going to let anyone die,” he says. “I’m going to _replace it._ I will be the singularity. I will transcend this human body. I’m its equal in every possible way.”

_Right. You’re exactly like OVERSEER. A superintelligence. Perfect recall. The ability to multitask in computing systems. Knowledge. Except one crucial difference._

“And what’s that?”

Corvo stares into black eyes, silver augmented irises staring back. _You’re a human._

“I’ll be so much more than that when I upload my consciousness and truly interface with the virtual world, Corvo.”

_You’ll always be human._

Levi stares at him, black eyes narrow and cold. “An uploaded consciousness isn’t a human. A human is a biological body, a physical framework on which the mind rests. Put myself into a machine and I transcend that!”

_What makes you human is not your physical body. You aren’t in your body. You’re in your mind, the actions and ideas and thoughts. Cut all the rest away and it doesn’t matter, you can live without a lot of it and be fine. Your body influences your world, but at the end of the day…whether you’re looking through the eyes of a camera or through biological eyes, whether you’re picking up temperature from heat sensors or your fingertips, it’s you receiving the data. You told me yourself. Programming is programming, whether it’s digital data or a sequence of neurons. What’s uploaded into the Void, what you’ll put in place of OVERSEER? It’s still you. It will always be you. It will always be human._

“It won’t be in this body!” Levi slaps his chest, hard. “Useless! A piece of meat that’s so much weaker than anything augmented could ever be! If I upload myself, I don’t have to be _Levi_ anymore!”

Corvo rocks back at the words. _Did you miss what I said? You will always be you! The moment of yourself that uploads is still you. Your body created who you are and even if you get out of it—_

“—then I get out of it! I can escape what they did to me!” Corvo sees it: the panic, the realization that Levi said too much, went too far. Corvo understands now.

_Even as the singularity, you can’t undo what happened._

The connection drops.

Slowly, it shudders back to life.

“I could reprogram myself,” Levi says harshly.

Carefully, almost fearing that Levi will break if handled, Corvo takes his hands. _Does that make you any different from OVERSEER, if you reprogram yourself? If you lie?_

Levi looks away. He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t try to let go of Corvo.

He has an advantage and he presses it. There’s one thing left he hasn’t tried, and it’s a low blow, but Corvo has never claimed to be a moral man. _I can’t reach you if you go. Levi. Don’t leave me. Please._

There’s a long moment of dead silence.

Finally, Levi looks at Corvo again. “I thought all my plans would survive you,” he says, weary. “My best guess…wrong.”

There’s silence in the room. Levi’s staring at Corvo with something empty in his eyes, no energy in that so-frenetic body. Corvo is just about to reach out when Levi turns and walks out the doors onto the balcony, all the way to the edge, uncovered in the storm. He’s instantly drenched. Corvo follows, standing at the doors and watching. When Levi turns to him, Corvo can’t tell if the rivulets of water trickling down his cheeks are tears or rain.

“There’s nothing left,” he says.

_There’s everything left._

“I thought I could get out. Change. You tell me…I can’t. And you’re right. Look at me.” He tilts back his head, showing the scar on his throat. “They cut out my voice like they cut out yours and I put it back on my own. Surgery conducted in a mirror with localized anesthesia that wore off three-quarters of the way through. At least by that point I could hear myself screaming…and I might as well have died on OVERSEER’s table.”

_Levi…_

“I can’t change what I am,” Levi says with a cold finality.

The balcony has no railing.

_Don’t._

Whales are singing, somewhere above them. More than one, it sounds like: several, singing in harmonies that make the lighthouse tremble. Like they’ve come to be heralds.

Or to mourn.

Levi smiles faintly. “Farewell, Corvo.”

He steps backward.

Corvo reaches for him and _pulls_ —

—he Blinks—

—seizes hold of Levi’s wrists, dragging him back. _What are you doing!?_

“Let me _go!_ ” Levi shouts, staggering. He tries to wrench himself away from Corvo, but Corvo is not letting go now. “Let it be _over_. I can’t do this! I can’t fix this! Programming is programming, unless it’s human neurons. Can you rewrite a synapse, change the path of an axon? _I can’t change!_ ”

_They say you can, with enough time._

“I’ve tried for years and it never works,” Levi whispers. He stares at his hands, held tight by Corvo’s, as if they belong to someone else. “Strange how _there's always a little more innocence left to lose_ _…_ I wanted to help Dunwall, the Isles, and now you ask me…”

_I’m not asking you for anything but to walk away from the edge._

Levi doesn’t reply.

_Listen to me._ Cautiously, Corvo lets go of one hand to rest his hand on Levi’s cheek. As if on instinct, Levi leans into it. _You can’t change being human. Being human hurts. You can’t know everything. You’re breakable. You make mistakes. You fail. Levi…you’ve watched all of the Isles, you know what humans are._

“Yes.”

_Then you know you’re human. You’re a hacker with delusions of godhood, a manipulative man who helped me find my daughter, who does everything because he’s selfish and proud, who made the Weeper virus and accidentally killed people and on the same day stared at the sky and watched whales. You make mistakes. You’re breakable. I wouldn’t…I couldn’t love you if you were like OVERSEER. If you were like you want to be._

Corvo pauses, wondering if he’ll get a reply.

He doesn’t.

_I’m not asking you to give up on your plans. I’m asking you…to please. Please. Don’t kill yourself, to become the Outsider. You can pull the singularity apart, you can replace it, just…don’t become a ghost. Don’t go._

“When I’ve replaced this much of my body, and I still don’t count for virtual…what am I, Corvo? Tell me that. Tell me _what I am._ ”

Letting go of Levi reluctantly, Corvo holds up his hand, showing the mark etched on the back of it. _This is your Mark. You’re my operating system. My intelligence. You’re every computer system in the Isles. The whisper in the silence. You’re unique. You’re the Outsider. You’re Levi._

He pauses. Unblinking black eyes meet Corvo’s. Augmented hands tremble.

_That’s all you need to be._


	29. Chapter 29

In the end, the sun does not rise over Dunwall. The storms are too heavy for that. But the whales are still there, still singing, when Emily Kaldwin returns to Dunwall Tower. She returns to a scene of silent shock, a place where the singularity…simply isn’t.

But the lights are still on. The city is still running, just as it always has, but OVERSEER gives no commands. The great superintelligence is silent.

And Emily takes the reins. Kaldwin Enterprises owns Dunwall, in truth if not in name, through chains of favors and stocks and shares and holding companies. When she’s legally recognized, and her accounts open, she begins to shape the path that the city will take in the immediate future. She’s not even out of the operating theater before she’s making decisions and laying out plans. Corvo can only stand back, and admire, and wonder.

She brings Callista, who had no hand in the betrayal, to live in the Tower and also asks Geoff Curnow (Callista’s uncle) to head up the security team with Corvo. Though Wallace can’t be found—evidence indicates that he erased himself after his last conversation with Corvo—Cecelia is still there in the Hounds Pits, and her programs are brought to Dunwall Tower. She’s much, much happier there than she ever was in the Blackout District.

Funded by Emily, Piero and Sokolov are set on the path of fighting back against the Weeper virus, and together they make headway. Without interference from OVERSEER or its servants, they begin to make progress. The epidemic is in remission at last.

A week after Emily’s return, Corvo finds himself on a high floor of the tower. He stands at the huge window in the hallway, watching the city below. The neon lights glitter and gleam through the rain, even in the Blackout District, where the Weeper virus is slowly but surely being beaten back. It’s strangely calm. Will there be more riots? So far he’s seen nothing, and it seems there may be nothing at all, in the end. Dunwall is stable again, for whatever that’s worth, and perhaps things will turn for the better.

There are footsteps behind him, and Corvo is joined at the window by the Outsider. His eyes have dark shadows under them, from sleepless nights to which Corvo has borne silent witness. He stares out at the city and, after a moment, speaks.

“So ends the interregnum. Emily Kaldwin has taken her mother’s title and holds the reins of her company after a time of chaos. You, Corvo, will stand at her side, guiding and protecting her. Through all of this, you chose to watch and listen in moments when other men might have fired their guns. You held back, time after time, instead of striking. And through your choices, by your hand, the Weeper dies and Emily ascends. Cause and effect only appear in our hindsight, but even a cursory analysis tells us that the days to come will be a golden age. And it can be seen that your wise daughter, years from now when you are old and worn, will acknowledge you as more than her bodyguard.”

_That sounds like a damn fine future._

“It does, doesn’t it,” the Outsider says thoughtfully. His green eyes sparkle in the light through the rain-spattered windows.

Corvo turns to him, leaning his shoulder against the glass. _Where do you fit in?_

His companion smiles. “I’m a very busy man, these days. Managing every system in the Isles without actually becoming a tyrant…it’s difficult.”

_Your delusions of godhood aren’t so delusional anymore._

“No, they aren’t,” the Outsider says. He offers his hand and Corvo takes it, the edges of the simulacrum glitching around Corvo’s augmented hand. It resolves, and solidifies. “Someday, long after our whole civilization has been swallowed by the waves, someone might find the Hand of the Dead God. It has a certain ring to it, don’t you agree?”

Corvo shakes his head. _You’re impossible._

“There is very little that’s impossible in this world, as you yourself have demonstrated. The challenges you face now might be greater…”

_I don’t face any._

The Outsider gives Corvo a genuinely startled look. “There’s a lot to be handled in Dunwall.”

_Emily has told me it’s all right if I leave, if only for a little while. I’m coming back to Karnaca._

Corvo can’t quite read the Outsider’s expression. “Tired of my simulacrum’s company?”

_No._ Corvo kisses the mark on the back of his hand and watches a smile break through the simulacrum, the real smile that belongs to Levi. _Missing yours._

Levi shakes his head. He looks up, and out the window, and points. “There, look.”

The whales are beginning to leave the skies over Dunwall. They’ve been going in ones and twos for the last several days, off in all directions, and now there’s only one left, slowly diving down around the very top of Dunwall Tower. The song throbs through everything, ever-present but no less fascinating and impossibly beautiful.

_Just one left._

“Waiting, I think, to bring you home,” Levi says softly. Corvo looks at him and finds black eyes looking back, the simulacrum hanging off the ground, just as it had when they first met. “Your life has room for one more turn, does it not?”

Corvo doesn’t answer. He only offers his hand, and the god takes it.

They stand together above the city, watching the slow dancing of the whale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...that's a wrap! Thank you all for sticking with me, this has been a fun ride. I hope to see you in whatever fic comes next too! <3<3<3 If you’re interested in taking a look at some of the media that inspired all of this, here’s a list of the major influences and what they gave the fic. 
> 
> Count Zero (William Gibson): NO, I didn’t read Neuromancer. But this book, with its tormented assassin protagonist navigating a world of corporate warfare, and the very literal Deus ex Machina (god in the machine), still inspired. ‘“Thrones and dominions,’ the Finn said obscurely. ‘Yeah, there’s things out there. Ghosts, voices. Why not? Oceans had mermaids, all that shit, and we had a sea of silicon, see? Sure, it’s just a tailored hallucination we all agreed to have, cyberspace, but anybody who jacks in knows, fucking knows it’s a whole universe…’”
> 
> Man Plus (Frederik Pohl): Although the premise of this book is decidedly NOT “cyberpunk”, the image of the augmented man played a huge role in establishing how Corvo would interact with the world and how he would relate to the man making his augmentations. “How could Roger deal with the greatest of personal questions—what is Right, and what is Wrong?—if the information he had to base a decision on was filtered through Brad’s mediation circuits?” 
> 
> Ghost in the Shell (1995): provided a lot of technobabble, visual inspiration, and general contemplation of how humans play with the virtual world.
> 
> Blade Runner (1982): EXTREME visual inspiration; the image of OVERSEER’s server hub and the halls inside are direct reflections of the things you see in this film, especially the hall when Rachel is introduced. Additionally, the “tears in the rain” monologue does make its appearance during Levi’s breakdown at the end.
> 
> Blade Runner 2049 (2017): More visual inspiration! But also the difficulties of falling in love with a virtual being you can never touch. I’m still crying over that.
> 
> The Matrix (1999): Bend Time and the singularity.
> 
> Soylent Green (1973): NOT CYBERPUNK. Still, the filthy, overcrowded city is something to consider when looking at the Blackout District.
> 
> GATTACA (1997): Genetic perfection? Attempts to understand the nature of being human? Yep.
> 
> Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008): “Amber Sweet is addicted to the knife. / Addicted to the knife? / Addicted to the knife…”
> 
> Minority Report (2002): the ideas of probability, unpredictability, and other similar concepts the Outsider throws around definitely inspired.
> 
> SOMA (Frictional Games, 2015): Want a tale about the nature of consciousness? A story of technology run rampant? Uploaded brain scans and transhumanism? A healthy dose of horror? Relations between the virtual and the physical? A singularity in an apocalyptic world? Go play SOMA. And tell me what decision you make.
> 
> Chronologie (Jean-Michel Jarre, 1993): I listened to this while writing. Gives a nice ambience.
> 
> “Online” (Brad Paisley, 2007): I’ve been steeping in the idea of being “so much cooler online” FOR A DECADE. Here’s the simulacrum! 
> 
> René Descartes: I owe this jackass for the philosophical underpinnings of the fic AND for the title, although the title actually derives thematically from the Hilborn poem in the epigraph. “Cogito Ergo Sum” is the summary of how we know we exist: even without a body, there is a human consciousness and that is known because it can disbelieve its own existence. You can only do that if you exist. Still with me? Good. I spend a lot of time wanting to smack the shit out of Descartes for this and its contribution to the mind/body split that still plagues us today, but in this fic the idea of the separate consciousness rather does form Corvo’s argument against Levi’s abandonment of his physical form and effective suicide.
> 
> And if you’re REALLY looking for inspiration for cyberpunk, look at the phone in your hand, Uber’s self-driving cars, China’s surveillance systems, VR technology, Google Home and Amazon Echo, artificial intelligence hacking into the foundations of democracies…and think about what you see.
> 
> Welcome to the future.


	30. Chapter 30

start

run overseer.exe

[ERROR_NO_PROGRAM_TO_OPEN]

start

run outsider.exe


End file.
